
ZTbe xaniversit^ of dbicago \^ 



Copy ^^^Bi^^K FOl'NDED BY JOHN D. ROCKF.FELLER 



ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 



A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTIES OF THE GRADUATE 
SCHOOLS OF ARTS, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE, IN CANDIDACY 

for the degree of doctor of philosophy 
(department of pedagogy) 



BY 

ELLA FLAGG YOUNG 



PRINTED P.Y 

Ubc "GlniversitB of Cblcago press 
1900 



JLbc Tllnivcrsft^ ot Cbfcago 

FOUNDED BV JOHN D. KOCKEFELLER 



ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 



A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTIES OF THE GRADUATE 

SCHOOLS OF ARTS, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE, IN CANDIDACY 

FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

(department of pedagogy) 



BY 

ELLA FLAGG YOUNG 









PRINTED BY 

^be lUnivetsits of Cbfcago Pcess 
1900 



INTRODUCTION. 

Every state and territory in the United States has a system of free 
schools. The attitude of the American people toward education is 
evidenced by this general establishment of schools and the liberal 
provision for their support. The influence of this attitude on education 
itself has been twofold : its function and scope have been enlarged ; 
its intrinsic value and prestige have been questioned. The inadequacy 
of the old conception of education to meet the demands and the 
doubts has become such a prolific source of disquietude and dissatis- 
faction that ere long a new one must needs be constructed. The new 
standard, with its adaptation to social and economic conditions, bids 
fair to be the dominant factor in the social product of the future. 

There are many phases to the problem of evolving a highly 
organized social institution which shall have that ease in adjustment 
and that adaptation to ends which characterize thought in its free 
activity. To some the application of the biological conception of 
an organism to the school, both in its structure and workings, is very 
attractive. There is one serious, almost insuperable, objection to the 
application of this conception to the school. Take, for example, the 
human organism. The heart, the lungs, and the stomach have each 
the same general end in view, the nourishment of the body ; yet time 
will not readjust the functions of these different organs so that their 
specific aims will be materially changed, and in some respects inter- 
changed, in securing a higher degree of digestion and assimilation of 
food. On the other hand, as the interrelation between the various 
parts of the school becomes more effective, it will be evident that the 
particular stress now laid upon one part may be transferred advan- 
tageously to another. If the conception of the school and the specific 
duties of its parts has been cast in the crystallized form of an organism, 
it will be most difficult, if not impossible, to transfer emphasis of 
function and aim. Indeed, the question may be raised right here 
whether the opposition today, in the pedagogical as well as the general 
mind, to a revision of the special aims and methods of the different 
schools does not rest mainly on the rhetorical figure of this inflexible 

3 



4 ISOLATION FN THE SCHOOL 

organism. Herbert Spencer, in enlarging upon the conditions which 
led him to observe the analogy between society and living things, 
naturally starts with the "cell theory." His argument only intensifies 
the objection herein raised, for nowhere does he consider the necessity 
for transfer of function. He considers development, not transfer. 

The western peoples have found themselves in the nineteenth 
century confronted with such puzzling problems regarding the life of 
modern society that a new department of investigation has come to be 
recognized. As the method of the student of social conditions has 
advanced from the collection and classification of data to the search 
for those laws which permeate the social world, it has become evident 
that the school also must be subjected to examination from new and 
many points of view. Influences which are hostile to its best develop- 
ment must be counteracted ; not by wordy condemnations, but by 
making their opposites active. 

This essay endeavors to contribute something toward the illumina- 
tion of some of those phases of the life of the school in which are made 
manifest the difficulties involved in the maintenance of a continuous 
intellectual and moral advance throughout the system because of the 
influence of isolation. The trend of the argument will be in accord 
wi,th this general statement : the level of power in the educational 
system is determined by the degree in which the principle of coopera- 
tion is made incarnate in developing and realizing the aim of the 
school. The questions involved will be discussed in three divisions : 
(i ) the various parts of this social institution ; (2) some recent con- 
structions of psychological, ethical, and logical modes that must be 
recognized in a rational conduct of the school ; (3) the function of the 
school in a democracy. 

Chicago, .March, 1900. 



THE PARTS OF THIS SOCIAL INSTITUTION. 

No MORE remarkable chapter can be found in the history of the 
upward march of the human race than the one bearing on education. 
Though the avowed aim of the school has been the protection of its 
wards from the dangers of ignorance, yet so limited has been the con- 
ception of the means of protection that acquaintance with the values 
of the past has been construed as an efficient and all-sufficient engine 
for defensive and offensive operations in the struggle of life. The 
material with which the scholars have worked being traditional, and 
often that which has been discarded from the life in the world outside, 
the spur to intellectual activity which comes from the unsolved prob- 
lems in science, art, and ethics has been lacking. As the information 
acquired rested largely on the verbal memory, a method which should 
bring into play the elements of strength peculiar to each individual 
was not indispensable. Reformers differed merely as to where the 
emphasis on tradition, or where the stress of activity in the mind, 
should be laid. Not until Rousseau (that faithless father) demanded 
that education make human welfare its active principle did modern 
pedagogy begin to live. In these conditions, briefly outlined, lies the 
explanation of that strange chapter on education extending from the 
days of Plato and Aristotle to a point in time less than one hundred 
and fifty years back. 

For the understanding to accept human welfare as the aim of the 
evolution of human power is only the first step in securing a thorough- 
going comprehension of what is involved. So pressing is the solution 
of the problem presented by the single question of gaining a liveli- 
hood, to say nothing about a competency, that the consideration of the 
well-being of humanity begins with Herbert Spencer's weighing of the 
claims of egoism and altruism, with a marked preponderance on the 
side of the former. With interest in self-preservation highly developed 
on one side only, the non-rational, it was but natural that modern 
theory and practice should halt long on the plane where education was 
viewed as that discipline which enables the members of the human 

5 



6 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

family to make the ascent independently and alone. Slowly is the gen- 
eral mind beginning to grasp the idea of the unity whose factors are 
egoism and altruism, individualism and organization. 

The effort which the American people are making to secure a clearer 
comprehension of conditions involved in the construction of the new 
ideal has necessitated a focusing of attention on the recognized instru- 
ment — the school. Chief among the defects discovered by this 
focusing is the separation of the school into schools — kindergarten, 
elementary, secondary, college, university — each based upon a theory 
and method which in itself is original and final. These sharp divisions 
are not the results of differentiation within a recognized unity; on the 
contrary, they are the legitimate outcome of the manner in which the 
idea of the school has come to include all the various departments 
mentioned. The parts have been brought together mechanically, thas 
making the accepted conception of this great social institution that of 
an aggregation of independent units, rather than that of an organiza- 
tion whose successful operation depends upon a clearly recognized 
interrelation, as well as distinction, between its various members and 
their particular duties. 

One of the striking signs of the unrest resulting from the influence 
of isolation throughout the school is the widespread dissatisfaction 
with the loss of time and the ineffective work which are often attendant 
upon the entrance of the child or youth into the next higher depart- 
ment above that whose course has been completed. Some think they 
have discovered a principle underlying the sharp differentiation when 
they suggest the insertion of a connecting class between the kinder- 
garten and the elementary department ; or when they advocate the 
establishment of special schools to act as "feeders" from the high 
schools to secondary institutions, which in their turn will overlap the 
college course. The introduction of these links, which are not recog- 
nized parts of the great system, suggests the existence of two condi- 
tions : (i) The failure on the part of each school to secure a working 
knowledge of the method and aim of the other. Shocking as is the 
conduct of those selfish parents in James's What Maizie Knew, it is no 
more so than that of the members of teaching corps or faculties, who 
wrap themselves in their togas pedagogical and know little of the con- 
ditions from which their pupils have come and into which they will 



PARTS OF THIS SOCIAL INSTITUTION 7 

go, except through information obtained by quizzing the shrewd child 
or youth. (2) The maintenance by the higher school of the traditional 
qualifications for admission to its membership, without reference to the 
changes which psychologic study may have introduced in the theory 
and method of the lower schools. Although it holds true that the 
instructors in a given subject should be competent to state the condi- 
tions upon which one can assume the work required by them, yet it is 
equally true that, with occasional exceptions, the nearer a faculty stands 
to long-established educational institutions, the more authoritative will 
be the voice of tradition within its fold. 

On the other hand, the successful issue of the efforts of interme- 
diary classes and schools points to the necessity for an investigation 
into and determination of sound pedagogic method for the different 
states in the unfolding life of the child, the youth, the young man, and 
the young woman. It is not a transition period that should command 
attention, for if there be such, then it is a distinct period of itself; but 
it is the two consecutive states which should be understood, each with 
its positive methods and interests, yet evolving so gradually out of, or 
into, the other that the line of demarcation is imperceptible. How can 
there be clear insight into conditions lying beyond one's sphere of 
activity, if there be not cooperation between the members in the differ- 
ent spheres ? Here and there the educational world gives evidence of 
an awakening on the subject of the need for the involution of coopera- 
tion, as well as differentiation, in the effort to make the welfare of 
humanity its goal. The awakenings are only sporadic, and often take 
on the form of an exchange of grievances rather than the interchange 
of suggestive, impersonal criticism. This is the result of long-continued 
activity which, because isolated and complete in itself, restricts the 
field of its operations and the power of its initiative. When there is 
an interplay of educational thought between the kindergarten and the 
elementary teachers, between the high-school and the college faculties, 
and all along the line, sentimentalism and dogmatism will give way to 
scientific method in the study of a true correlation of forces which are 
but slightly organized at the present time. That mobility of spirit 
which characterizes an interplay of thought between different groups is 
the basis of true cooperation, for each mind in each group must exer- 
cise its powers of origination and execution. It would be interesting 



8 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

to investigate the historical conditions under which the various depart- 
ments of the school have arisen and been gradually incorporated in 
the general scheme of education, but this inquiry is analytic of present, 
not historic, conditions. 

That which first attracts one's attention in the consideration of the 
individual parts into which this loose organization resolves itself is 
the composition of the teaching corps or faculty. Until the establish- 
ment of state universities, all college and university communities 
regulated their inner policy independent of public control, and as a 
result their faculties were known through a few prominent members 
only. It is within a comparatively recent period that these faculties 
have been subjected to comparison and criticism by the public at 
large. Doubtless the manner in which they have stepped out of the 
college halls and have taught and debated in the open court has done 
more to break down the traditions, which made a broad chasm between 
them and the world at large, than has the founding of universities by 
the different state governments. It is not surprising that the modern 
spirit, which interests itself in all classes and conditions of humanity, 
should be measuring the power of those whose special work is the most 
advanced with the attainments, culture, and method of those whose 
work lies with the great mass, only an infinitesimal part of which ever 
reaches the college. Hence there are two factors, the faculties them- 
selves and the modern spirit, which are breaking down the divinity 
that has hedged the college and university method. Not to be a dis- 
tinct body receiving students from the lower schools, but to become a 
part of the great corps which is molding the race, is one of the duties 
in the future of the college faculties. Between the prevailing condi- 
tions, which are beginning to change, and the necessary conditions, 
which will bring knowledge of the aims and methods in the earlier 
departments of the school, are many steps. 

Teachers in the academy and high school have, until recent date, 
been beyond the pale of public and general criticism. Professional 
life, spent in a limited field of traditional reproduction, has been very 
like that in the college faculties. 

Upon turning to the public elementary school we find a teaching 
corps which is ever under the search-light of the public gaze. Here 
may a comprehensive survey be made of the influence of isolation. 



PARTS OF THIS SOCIAL INSTITUTION 9 

Starting with the theory that the public schools are inherently 
opposed to change, adverse critics, upon assuming the aggressive, 
demand a radical change in their theory and practice. To most of 
the dissatisfied and the critical this demand, coupled with an enumera- 
tion of some petty customs still retained, seems a satisfactory explana- 
tion of the cause of, as well as a prescription of an efficacious remedy 
for, the weakness and the mechanism deplored most deeply by the 
teaching corps itself. When reform stands for change chiefly, its out- 
come will have little or no intrinsic value. 

The saying, " As is the teacher so is the school," was for many 
years the expression of the teacher's responsibility. In the course of 
time, it was made more incisive; "The teacher is the school." From 
this it was but a short cut to charging the " inherent opposition to 
change " upon the teachers. Nothing could be more perplexing, more 
amazing, to the accused than this charge. They do not find it neces- 
sary to appeal to the written documents to refute this accusation. 
Memory furnishes ample data. The older teachers through their 
experience as teachers, and the younger through their experience as 
pupils, can rapidly summon evidence on every topic included under 
" The Theory and Practice of Teaching." Each of these topics might 
be outlined in three parts : the conditions in the early stage, the time 
of the beginnings of school systems ; the conditions during the period 
of organization and perfection of mechanism, the period of retrogres- 
sion ; the conditions at the present time, which to the careless observer 
seem a return to the first, though they are not, for in that which has 
been evolved there are implicit new and vital principles. The follow- 
ing will illustrate this development . 

a) Loose classification of pupils and subject-matter. 

b) Narrow and uniform grading of each. 

c) Elasticity in promotion of pupils and expansion of subject- 
matter. 



a) Close adherence to text-book, indiscriminate verbal memoriz- 
ing. 

S) Oral method, disappearance of verbal memorizing. 

c) Combination of text- and reference-books, some memoriter work. 



lo ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

a) The three R's + general-culture lectures. 

b) Rigid limitation to three R's + " useful " branches only. 

c) Teacher and pupil carrying from five to ten different subjects. 

a) Twenty-minute out-of-door recesses in forenoon and afternoon 
session. 

b) Sessions from two and a half to three hours long, without any 
physical exercise, recreation, or relaxation. 

c) Calisthenics, games, whispering recesses in every session, with out- 
of-door recesses in the long session added. 

As teachers recall the glowing ardor of superintendent and prin- 
cipal, as well as the vigorous efforts and heroic struggles of the teach- 
ers in these various movements, all unite in saying, The advance of 
the public school like 

"the emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is marked by 
Campfires long consumed, and bones that bleach in the sunshine." 

Change has been written large over every theory and method of 
instruction and management attempted in the brief school life of those 
who now constitute the public-school teaching corps; and yet, oppo- 
sition to change, the conservatism of the teaching force, is said to be 
the cause of the prevalence of theories and methods not in harmony 
with the time spirit of the last decade of the nineteenth century. 

What is the influence of the many changes made in a way that is 
hostile to the spirit by which the highest type of character is devel- 
oped in rational beings ? It is doubtless true that, as a rule, teachers 
are not commanded to make changes in their educational theory and 
method, but when they know what changes are desired, a feeling of 
loyalty to the originator as a superior officer, or the ambition to rank 
high in the estimation of that official, or the love of something novel, 
makes the majority prompt in adopting the new, without previous 
thought as to its desirability, without activity of the intellectual con- 
science. 

What, on the other hand, is the influence on the superintendent or 
the principal of habitually performing the function of originating and 
changing ideals for others ? It certainly does not make for the high- 
est type of character. It tends toward the creation of fixed ideals to 



PARTS OF THIS SOCIAL INSTITUTION ii 

be described for realization by others. Eventually the originator finds 
established in the school a lifeless model, with a few of the features of 
the original, rigidly set in alto-rilievo, making a caricature of what was 
to its author an ideal permeated with a great principle of mental life. 
Pessimism and iconoclasm often follow in the train of such a discovery. 
Much has been said recently regarding the examination and certifica- 
tion of teachers. Superintendents of city schools have indorsed the 
statement in the Report of the Committee of Fifteen that " the super- 
intendent should have power to appoint from an eligible list all 
assistants and teachers authorized by the board of education, and 
have unlimited power to assign them to their respective positions, and 
reassign them, or remove them from the force at his discretion." 
Sufficient emphasis has not been laid on two facts. These two are : (i) 
in six of the ten largest cities the eligible list is made up from the 
results of an examination given by the superintendent ; (2) the 
uncultured and non-progressive principals and teachers now in service 
in the schools must, at some former period of time, have been in the 
judgment of the superintendent, among the best applicants for certifi- 
cates. Stress is laid upon these, not for the purpose of entering into a 
discussion of the rights and duties which should inhere in the office of 
superintendent, but to indicate the absence of that interaction between 
the workers and their work which should exist, and which would keep 
alive the mental process in the individuals of the educational force, so 
that many of the best among the applicants for certificates would not 
become inefficient while actually engaged in teaching. 

The teaching corps in any system of schools will attain a high 
degree of efficiency only when it is unified by a unity in aim. At 
first glance, the usual statement of the corps — " Our aim is to educate 
the children, to make good citizens of them, to fit them to be useful 
members of society" — seems to indicate a singleness of aim on the part 
of teachers, principals, and superintendents that is encouraging. An 
interpretation of this statement shows great diversity of opinion as to 
its meaning. The aim settles down to the carrying out of the course 
of study. As the superintendent makes the course, the end secured is 
satisfactory in the degree in which it harmonizes with the superintend- 
ent's ideal as projected in the outline. The unity of aim in the three 
parts of the teaching corps lacks the essential of unity in origin. The 



12 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

more the aim is defined by the superintendent or the principal, the less 
unity will characterize it in the teaching force. 

Two objections will be urged against the implication that all should 
be active, not only in realizing, but in setting, the aim of the school, 
(i) The school cannot have so many different aims as there are teachers 
connected with it. If active participation in originating and cooperat- 
ing means diversity, then this objection is well grounded. (2) Teachers 
are satisfied with the present method. The relations are pleasant 
in the system. No one feels downtrodden. Consideration must be 
shown ; teachers are too busy to have the duty of assisting in planning 
the course of study added to their labors. Anyway, they have no 
ideals to set up. 

The problems connected with the development of the individuality 
of the teacher, and the unification of the aim in the large schools in 
the cities, were early presented to the minds of some in charge of 
systems of schools. Various solutions have been suggested. Often 
the solutions suggested have reminded one of that presented by children 
in some classes in arithmetic, in which they begin to work for the 
answer before all the conditions have been considered. One reason 
why the work in elementary schools has so much dead sameness was 
brought out some years ago by Superintendent E. E. White, of Cincin- 
nati. The extract is long, but it presents none too fully conditions 
which still obtain in many schools : 

"Another problem in graded-school management touches the free- 
dom of the teacher, and may be thus stated : How to subject a corps of 
teachers to efficient supervision and not reduce them to operatives. 

"The adoption of a definite course of study, with subdivisions 
corresponding to the number of classes, all following each other in 
natural order, necessitates the mastery of each of the successive portions 
as a preparation for the next higher. When the pupils in the lower 
grades or classes are sufficiently numerous to occupy several school- 
rooms under different teachers, the progress and attainments of the 
several sections of each grade or class must be sufficiently uniform to 
enable them to come together in the upper grades or classes. This 
necessitates a degree of uniformity of instruction, and it is just here 
that the mechanism of the graded system touches its very life, as the 
experience of too many of the larger cities plainly shows. To secure 



PARTS OF THIS SOCIAL INSTITUTION 13 

this uniformity of instruction the course is mapped out in minute 
details, and the time to be devoted to each part, the order in which the 
steps are to be taken, and even the methods of teaching, are definitely 
and authoritatively prescribed. As a result the teacher is not free to 
teach according to his 'conscience and power,' but his high ofifice is 
degraded to the grinding of prescribed grists, in prescribed quantities, 
and with prescribed fineness — to the turning of the crank of a revolv- 
ing mechanism." 

A large majority of the teachers in every city system are its own 
graduates. It necessitates a period of five years only, after the 
establishment of a secondary and a normal school, for a system to 
begin recruiting its teaching force from those who have never known 
any other method of education than the one in that particular system. 
The introduction of teachers from the village and country schools does 
not advance the standard, as they carry with them neither better 
scholarship nor greater breadth of experience than that in the corps. 
The normal schools have exalted method above culture, and so their 
graduates have been under the sway of the uniform normal method. 
The spirit of consecration to the work has been a distinguishing 
characteristic of their graduates. Had the ideal of the work contained 
more of a "definite, coherent heterogeneity," the normal school would 
have conquered the elementary -school world. 

Naturally there was evolved an extensive "business of supervision," 
because of the effort to have uniformity in teachers and methods ; 
because of the introduction of subjects which, though not familiar to 
those trained within the public school, the social life outside of the 
school made a necessary part of the curriculum ; because of the desire 
of the strong administrative character to guide others rather than to 
be in the treadmill. In course of time the man at the top began 
realizing that the specialists and assistants in the work of supervision 
were trespassing upon his prerogatives. In one city the superintendent 
maintained that there was a tendency to excessive supervision, and 
therefore that no title conferred on any other member of the teaching 
corps should include the term " superintendent," no matter how 
modified. That city had supervisors of many subjects and supervising 
principals, thus indicating that the attention of the chief was centered 
on the form side of the organization ; that the fundamental cause of 



14 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

his difficulties had not come to the surface with sufficient distinctness 
for him to observe it. 

Superintendent W. H. Maxwell, of New York City, when at the 
head of the public schools in Brooklyn, concentrated his attention 
upon the influence of the theory of supervision, and presented at some 
length the objections as they appeared to him : 

" Principals and heads of departments do not teach classes. They 
are supposed to spend their whole time in supervision. There is one 
supervisor who does not teach for every eleven classes. In my judg- 
ment the number of non-teaching supervisors is unnecessarily large. 
The excessive development of supervision has resulted in several 
clearly defined evils in our schools. 

"First, it has withdrawn from the work of class teaching many of 
our best teachers, and has thus lessened the efficiency of the teaching 
force as a whole. 

"Second, it has created the feeling that office work and making out 
examination questions are more honorable than the active work of 
teaching. If teachers are to have a due moral influence on their pupils, 
their office should be held in the highest honor. 

"Third, the struggle for the prizes that are held up before the eyes 
of our teachers in the shape of head-of-department places, involving as 
they do, in most cases, considerably less work and considerably better 
pay, has resulted in much unseemly wire-pulling and intrigue, an evil 
always to be deprecated in the administration of a public-school 
system. 

" Fourth, the multiplication of superfluous heads of departments has 
resulted in division of responsibility in school management, in petty 
jealousy, and in much harmful interference with the work of class 
teachers. 

" Fifth, the unnecessary increase in the number of heads of depart- 
ments has led to much of the excessive examination of pupils, with its 
attendant evils of cramming and nervous prostration, that, though now 
much less than in former years, still hurts our school work. 

"Sixth, the cost of this supervision, not merely in the salaries of 
heads of departments, but in the fitting up of elaborate offices with 
expensive furniture, is withdrawing each year a vast amount of money 
that is sadly needed for necessary work and material. 



PARTS OF THIS SOCIAL INSTITUTION 15 

" A close estimate would show that not less than $30,000 per annum 
is expended on superfluous heads of departments. Surely a better use 
might be found for this money. 

"From such facts as are here set forth it appears that in some 
places general supervision has been carried to too great an extreme, 
and the only question that remains to be settled is where to draw the 
line." 

These conclusions represent fairly the conditions existing in large 
systems into which have been introduced subjects under the care of 
special supervisors. Without criticising the superintendent who has 
fearlessly set forth the above facts, it becomes necessary to indicate the 
way in which some of the objectionable conditions originate in the 
general method of the system. The petty jealousy referred to in the 
fourth section, whether found in a system or in a single institution, is 
always evidence that the highest ranking officer is a person in power 
rather than a person of power. A chief executive devoid of petty 
jealousy, and refusing to use it as a spur for his subordinates, will find 
the possibilities of a solidarity among the members of the corps, or 
faculty, which does not exist in any other calling. Love of knowledge 
and faith in the future of humanity are in varying degrees peculiar to 
the minds that elect to teach the young. If the superior officer really 
consults with heads of departments in open meeting, they will rise from 
personal considerations to the question of relative values, and will 
appreciate the various claims as intelligently presented. If, however, 
authority of position dominates the discussions, or claims are presented 
and passed upon privately, petty jealousy will sorely perplex the head 
of the system, or school. The first, second, third, and fifth sections 
are different views of the same topic — the strong tendency at the 
present time to get away from the active work of teaching children. 
Some of the causes of this condition will be discussed later. The sixth 
section suggests rivalry as to creature comforts and display all along 
the entire line, and is a natural outcome of the withdrawal from the 
duties of direct teaching. 

When the teachers in a single school system are numbered by 
thousands, and the territory occupied covers many square miles, it 
is not strange that the size of the army and the spaces between its 
posts attract more attention than the observance, or non-observance, 



1 6 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

of those delicate laws which make for soul-development in that great 
social body. Upon a cursory survey of the situation it is natural to 
conclude that it is impossible to recognize for all teachers the ethical 
law of change for intelligent and responsible beings. This conclu- 
sion, though seemingly of great weight, is valueless. In the first place, 
the laws governing the development of the soul are not subject to con- 
ditions arising in a crudely developed social organization. The laws 
may be ignored, and the organization may continue, but at a sacrifice 
beyond estimation. Daily one sees teachers trying to hold a class to 
some statement in the text-book that is without content for the pupils, 
or to a chain of reasoning that is but a form to them, and then, after 
creating conditions foreign to those under which thought plays freely, 
say with much fervor : "Think! Think! You must think. Why don't 
you think?" How much difference is there between this method of 
the teachers and that of principals and superintendents who announce 
their conclusions in theory and their ideals in practice, and then say to 
the teachers, "Take these thoughts of mine and be original in using 
them" ? With the stress, the motion, the change, originated always in 
one part of the organization, and then conveyed to the other in man- 
datory form, a peculiar reactionary movement has set in. There are 
a few spots where this reactionary movement has such strength that 
the teachers aim to restrict the function of the school principal to sit- 
ting in the office ; scolding the tardy, the indolent, and the turbulent; 
calming the angry parents ; keeping the records ; examining written 
work; and filling out blanks and order for school supplies. Such is 
the irony of fate that what has been treated as a subordinate part, 
there claims to be the only part that functions for the true end of the 
school. It is the only part that deals directly and constantly Avith the 
pupils ; the only part that teaches ; or, in its own phraseology, " the 
only part that works." 

In cities where the teaching corps has become aroused to the evils 
ensuing from a differentiation that means isolation, there are greater 
possibilities of a healthful readjustment in the organization than in 
those where the tension is not definitely recognized, for the members 
are reaching that point of view from which they see that it is not liberty 
in carrying out, it is freedom and responsibility in origination also, 
that will make the whole corps a force, a power in itself. To predicate 



PARTS OF THIS SOCIAL INSTITUTION I? 

freedom for teachers in the superintendent's position, or for teachers 
in the principal's or the supervisor's position, is not sufficient to estab- 
lish freedom as an essential ; it must be predicated for all teachers. 
To prove that some cannot teach unless they possess freedom is not 
enough ; it must be predicated that freedom belongs to that form of 
activity which characterizes the teacher. The schools will be purged 
of the uncultured, non-progressive element, the fetters that bind the 
thoughtful and progressive will be stricken off, when the work is based 
on an intelligent understanding of the truth that freedom is an essen- 
tial of that form of activity known as the teacher. 

To formulate a theory for that rational conduct which shall neces- 
sitate an interaction between the various parts of the school, and an 
interplay of thought between the members of each part, is not a diffi- 
cult task ; but when the great body of pupils and students is brought 
into the foreground, the practical problem seems too intricate to admit 
of comprehension under any theoretical statement. That the same 
laws are active in the early and late stages of the development of per- 
sonality is the fundamental upon which the theory and practice of 
education must be constructed. The inherited customs which trans- 
figured the teacher, upon entering the class-room, into a superior being, 
omnipotent and all-wise, though abandoned by the understanding, are 
still active in the practical situation. The conserving influence of 
forms has been nowhere more marked than in the intercourse between 
the teacher and the pupils. The old-time attitude of subserviency, or 
respect as it was then termed, which the New England child was wont 
to assume in the presence of the dominie is referred to smilingly in 
the history recitation ; and yet many years elapsed after the smile had 
begun, before there dawned upon the educational horizon the recogni- 
tion of that social equality which with its customs had long marked 
the intercourse of the professor and the student, the teacher and the 
pupil, when outside of the precincts. This single instance of the slow 
progress of the school in discerning the spirit of those refining move- 
ments in the social world which make for a considerate, gracious 
personality may help to the formation of a faint conception of the 
retarding influences, which will delay long in the school the applica- 
tion of those laws which permeate the higher forms of social organiza- 
tion and conventions. 



1 8 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

If mind develops in proportion to the degree in which it operates 
in accord with its inherent tendency to investigate and apply the 
results of investigation, then is the conception of education which 
isolates the pupil from investigation, which should be the basis of 
application, most faulty. Some years ago the Forutu published a 
series of articles entitled "How I was Educated." The writers were 
college presidents and well-known literary men. In only one case 
was commendatory reference made to the school life below the acad- 
emy. Those dreary years of so-called discipline, destitute of oppor- 
tunity for activity in accordance with the mental bias, lacking the 
stimulus of cooperative work which makes the pupil an organic part 
of the school, had developed the view which is common to many 
who have enjoyed the higher education, namely, that the ele- 
mentary training has no intrinsic value. The theory of elementary 
education has been greatly modified since the boyhood days of those 
authors. We still halt, however, on the threshold of that world in 
which each member would be a copartner in its activities. 

As the universities bid fair to become the source from which the teach- 
ing corps will come largely, the question of its method, of its perpetuation 
of the influence of isolation, of the degree to which it recognizes the 
principles underlying that complicated mechanism, civil society, of its 
manner of presentation and investigation of subject-matter, is a vital one. 
Does it adopt the kindergarten method, or the high-school method ? 
Does it perpetuate the method of the university of the Renaissance, or 
does it seek to objectify the method which experience and science have 
demonstrated to be based on the modern movement ? The separation 
of the interests of the student from the life of the world outside attracted 
attention some years ago, and in course of time it was not uncommon to 
hear it stated that the kindergarten method should obtain in the univer- 
sities. As the kindergartner isolates the kindergarten field from the 
adjoining one, loses interest in education which has passed the paper- 
folding and pasting stage, the inquiry as to what the statement meant is 
germane to the subject under consideration. It must have meant that 
the universities, realizing the flaw in their great inheritance which tends 
to isolate them from the concrete life of the race, would adopt the 
method which would guarantee to all within their walls the exercise of 
the inherent right to the initiative in thought and action ; and this 
they understand to be the kindergarten method. 



PARTS OF THIS SOCIAL INSTITUTION 1 9 

The school does not stand unsupported, unrecognized, in the com- 
munity or the state. Upon a cursory view of the relation existing 
between these organizations, there appear for the school two aims 
which are in apparent conflict. Its avowed object is the training of 
the individuals intrusted to its care and direction. The higher, the 
more nearly perfect, that training, the deeper the recognition of the 
right, and the more pronounced the effort to make valid the right of 
each soul to a development of the inborn power of self-determination. 
On the other hand, as an institution of society, it must have for its 
object the direct contribution of elements of strength to that organiza- 
tion of which it is a component part. Those elements must be the 
individuals that it helps attain higher degrees of self-determination. 
These two aims are not in opposition ; they are the two phases of the 
same unity. Neither can be seen in its entirety without a recognition 
of the other. 

With the school closely bound by the reason for its existence, to 
the social world, the logical inference of that relationship would be 
that in the content of its course of study and the method of its treat- 
ment, the life on the outside would be typified. Instead of this, much 
of the course of study is effete matter, which was long ago rejected as 
having been made useless by modern thought and invention ; and 
many of the methods of manipulation and application of subject-mat- 
ter have been rejected by the busy workers outside as cumbersome and 
needlessly wearisome. 

The results of isolation from the life that now is may be seen in 
the kindergarten, which in its inception made a marked advance by 
the introduction of the social occupations of everyday life into the 
material of the school. But by the insistence upon the continuation 
in every country of those forms of activity which were effective in Ger- 
many half a century ago, the kindergarten stands isolated with the tra- 
dition that has no culture or experiential value. 

In the changes in the course of study in the elementary schools is 
given a striking illustration of a great social institution upon which 
depended the progress of the people, held back and finally criticised 
and minimized because its leaders persisted through many years in 
treating existing conditions as fixed, determined, and new conditions as 
hostile to the true idea of universal education. As special schools of 



20 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

instruction or technology demonstrated the value of material not 
included in, or modes of procedure foreign to, the old, the new was 
taken on as additional, not vital. The increase in the demands upon 
teachers in preparation for teaching many subjects not related, and in 
examining papers to make certain that no incidentals had escaped the 
memories of their pupils, developed a high degree of drudgery 
throughout. This subjection to drudgery was compensated for by the 
introduction of the terms "faithful" and "conscientious" as applicable 
to those who devoted themselves to perfecting the dull routine. What 
was the influence of this magnification of drudgery upon the personnel 
of the teaching corps ? This question brings forward the subject of 
the remarkable decrease in the number of men teachers, and corre- 
sponding increase in the number of women teachers, in city elemen- 
tary schools. Undoubtedly many causes operated to produce the 
change, but this was the most potent in affecting the personnel of both 
the number and type. 

In a course of lectures on The Development of Refiective Thought, 
Professor Mead gives an historical setting to this subject of drudgery 
in method : " In the ancient world the workman wrought under dicta- 
tion as to method. Freeman and slave sat side by side, using the tools 
as custom or religion dictated. The great change begun in the medi- 
aeval period consisted in man's becoming free as to method. As 
industrial conditions expanded and competition made necessary prog- 
ress in invention and advance in the manner of production, the first 
requisite of success was individual freedom for the worker in his 
method. From that assertion of the individual as to his method, the 
idea that he owned his spirit, himself, gradually developed into a new 
conception of freedom, a conception of the natural rights of man." 
Woman is far behind man in this conception as applied to woman, and 
in so far as she is deficient in a conception of the inherent right of a 
soul to its right to individuality in method of expression in work done 
under supervision, in that degree is she more easily subordinated to 
carrying out directions involving method. The Civil War diverted 
some men from the schools, though before that there were city systems 
in which not a man taught in elementary schools in a position below 
that of principal ; the possibilities of financial success in the profes- 
sions of law and medicine, as well as in mercantile life, have tended to 



PARTS OF THIS SOCIAL INSTITUTION 2 1 

draw men away from the elementary schoolroom ; yet these influences 
have not been more potent in keeping men out of the schools than 
have the mechanism, drudgery, and loss of individuality which the 
method of organization and administration has tended to make char- 
acteristic of the graded school. 

Although natural gifts, the equality of the sexes in many American 
homes, a strong individuality, the pursuance of intellectual work outside 
of the school, all combined to keep a large percentage of women teachers 
and principals free, yet a number large enough to be conspicuous has 
never attained that conception of freedom which makes demands upon 
the powers of origination in each individual. It is these undeveloped 
teachers, principals, and members of the supervising force who exer- 
cise the right of dictation of method thus elevating it far above mate- 
rial, who constitute the non-progressive section of the teaching force 
in the city school systems. It is this non-progressive element which 
fills the places into which many desirable young men and women refuse 
to enter. With the broader education of woman and the opening of 
other fields to her, she is attaining a conception of freedom as to 
method ; a conception of the natural rights of the soul ; and so we 
find the young woman of parts from the high school, the college, or 
the university unwilling to enter upon the life of the elementary-school 
teacher. The young men who look toward the schools wish to under- 
take some new line of work, not of instruction, but of investigation ; 
to measure and weigh the little ones with machines. The young women 
of parts wish to be special teachers — to teach the teachers, not the 
children. So closely associated with drudgery is the ideal of teaching 
the young, that trained minds and cultivated personalities shrink from 
entrance into the direct work. 

The stress of conditions has become so great both within and 
without the precincts that relief must come soon. The active cause of 
this problematic condition has not come to the surface. The isola- 
tion between the theory of the school and the theory of life is so great 
that the general consensus of opinion advocates the retention in the 
school of subject-matter and forms of work which it will not tolerate 
in the commercial world or home. So foreign is the school life to the 
interests of the parents that they rarely enter its doors on other than 
gala days. And yet the large numbers that throng its halls on those 



22 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

days evidence the tendency in human nature to cooperate in making 
the life of the young a unity, in which the school and the home shall 
be interactive. 

The difference in origin, subject-matter, and aim of the course of 
study in the public high school and the private preparatory school 
was brought out very distinctly by Dr. William T. Harris, Commis- 
sioner of Education, in a paper on "Secondary School Studies": 
"There is no doubt that the high-school course laid out by the 
school committees is more rational than the secondary course of 
the private preparatory schools prescribed for them by the colleges. 
And yet the college course was the conscious product of the highest 
educated minds of the community. The unconscious evolution by 
' natural selection ' in the minds of school committees elected by the 
people was wiser, on the whole. Individual members of city school 
boards are always found who oppose classical studies altogether. But 
the pressure of popular demand always prevails to secure in the public 
schools what is needed." 

With the early introduction of specialization in student life, it is 
impossible to place the college in its present relation to the social 
world. Such new forms and subjects of investigation have been 
taken up that society seems the subject-matter of the higher schools. 
Whether Mr. Bosanquet's prediction to the effect that the distinguish- 
ing characteristic of our times will be the "dimming of the time- 
honored belief in the virtues of the poor" will prove true is a question 
that cannot now be settled. But that mere statement by such a stu- 
dent of social conditions arouses the mind to investigate and deter- 
mine whether the old form of separation that so long dominated the 
universities is still effective in the new field, or whether there be a new 
construction active in defining society and the laws underlying it. 

Isolation in any social organization means more than separation in 
space. It means deprivation of the exercise of inherent powers, both 
originative and constructive — negation. Cooperation means more 
than spontaneity in following another's lead ; evolution of potential 
powers through a reaction, initiated by the self and terminating in 
creative intelligence, is always involved in its operation. 



II. 

SOME RECENT CONSTRUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGIC, ETHIC, AND 
LOGICAL MODES THAT MUST BE RECOGNIZED IN A RATIONAL 
CONDUCT OF THE SCHOOL. 

The psychologist of today is laying stress on modes of action that 
received little attention from the student of mental science in the past. 
That almost total neglect was somewhat remarkable, for the reason that 
the non-scientific of high and low grade of culture recognized them 
and held definite opinions regarding their signification. The value of 
those opinions is enhanced in our estimation by the fact that the old 
terminology is in the main retained by the scientific investigators, who 
are gathering and organizing data as to the origin and function of imi- 
tation, habit, and attention ; and, in so doing, are not only modifying 
and enlarging popular theory as to these modes of action, but are also 
constructing scientific theory. 

One of the earliest and fullest studies of imitation was made by 
Aristotle in The Poetic. In that work he bases his theory of the drama 
and kindred arts on imitation. The school of modern artists and lit- 
terateurs which regards the function of art to be the exact reproduction 
of the model is small, though the number of persons who accept the 
two causes of imitation as given by Aristotle is very large. Even 
when the psychologist began to look upon this activity as one which 
fell within his province, he accepted the delight of man in imitation, 
and his enjoyment of successful imitations, as sufficient explanation of 
its origin or cause. 

Certain modifications were noted as affecting the degree to which 
the attempt to copy is carried ; as, for example, an energetic child is 
said to be more imitative than is a lethargic child, though the question 
as to the ratio of imitated acts to the whole activity in the different 
classes was neither raised nor answered. The influence of environment 
on these two types of children was not considered, though it would 
have furnished suggestive material as to the causes of the types. 
Another factor which was taken into account was the emotional tem- 
perament which had very early attracted the attention of the student of 

23 



24 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

abnormal tendencies. The tendency of the less independent and the 
non-assertive child to copy unconsciously the absurdities of others, and 
the general use of mimicry as a means of ridicule, have been the cause 
of the unexpressed opinion that the imitator takes the objectionable 
for a model. Aristotle treats this from a somewhat different standpoint. 
He says, since imitators imitate, then it necessarily follows that they 
imitate those who are better than, or worse than, or like unto, them- 
selves, and urges the presentation of the best possible as model for 
the imitator. Had he been writing in the present analytic age, he 
would have suggested the probability that the copy taken indicated the 
moral motif of the imitator. 

The most important outcome of these various popular studies was 
the setting up of an antithesis with originality and invention on one 
side, and imitation on the other. This antithesis has long been, and 
still is, the basis of popular educational theory, which would devote the 
years of elementary training of children to the making of careful repro- 
ductions of the copy set by the teacher, and then would advance to 
higher forms of intellectual work, forms requiring power in individual 
origination and invention, those who had sufficient strength to rise 
above the influence of the practice of the theory under which they had 
been trained. 

Very different is the method of approach to this subject made by 
Professor Baldwin within the last five years. Making use of investiga- 
tions of the biologists he says: "The effect of imitation is to make the 
brain a ' repeating organ,' /. e., to secure the repetitions which on all 
biological theories the organ must have if it is to develop ;" and from 
this he brings out the point that "a child under limitations of heredity 
makes up its personality by imitation, out of the copy set in the actions, 
tempers, emotions, of the persons who build around him the social 
inclosure of his childhood." Here is met the question about the 
influence of environment in imitation which was so completely ignored 
by the earlier investigators. 

Satisfactory as is the recognition of this factor, one cannot help 
wishing that Professor Baldwin had gone deeper into the analysis, so 
that the spontaneous activity at the beginning of the process would 
have been brought out more clearly. His treatment of stimulation is 
such that, inferentially, imitation begins with a reaction on the stimulus 



RECENT PSYCHOLOGIC, ETHIC, AND LOGICAL MODES 25 

in the environment, rather than in the original impulse which selects 
and then reacts. In his summary of the results of neurological 
research he brings out very distinctly this point of origin : " Wherever 
there is life there is spontaneous selection of stimuli and the motor 
adaptations necessary to it." This is in the section on Organic Imitation; 
but when he writes about "How to Observe Children's Imitations" the 
uncertainty of origin again becomes evident. He falls back into that 
mode of speech which, like Spencer's, makes the environment an all- 
powerful influence, and seems to forget the persisting traits in the indi- 
vidual which are the basis of native reactions. He uses Leibnitz's 
phrase about the child's reflecting the whole system of influences, com- 
ing to stir its sensibility, and then emphasizes it by adding: "Just in so 
far as his sensibilities are stirred he imitates." 

All of this, however, does not minimize the value of his study in 
demonstrating the truth that there is no antithesis between originality 
and imitation, but that invention is an outgrowth of imitation. Three 
elements are involved in the development of the original out of the 
imitative : "the new ways" in which one imitates; "the combinations 
he hits upon" when imitating freely; "the growth of self" through 
the consciousness of power discovered in varying the copy. To come 
more definitely at the gain accruing from this recent analysis of imita- 
tion and its development into invention, there must be borne in mind 
the general attitude toward this mode of action. The question of imi- 
tation was viewed largely as one of temperament and will, hence, if a 
good copy was set, then the more closely it was imitated, the nearer 
the result approached the desired aim, and the better the worker as an 
imitator. The independent, self-assertive person did not imitate any- 
thing or anybody. This division into imitators and non-imitators 
ignored the elements involved in the evolution of originality and 
inventive power. The independent individual, it was assumed, did 
nothing which he saw others doing. Hence it was as necessary for him 
to deny imitation as it was to claim invention. The transfiguring 
power of the self and the dependence of the individual upon others 
were lost to view. The modern psychologist has thus shown the 
growth of mental power, even in so primary an activity as imitation, 
to depend upon the modification which the mind of the imitator 
originates. 



26 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

Instead of striving to develop mind in a field isolated from that 
which would furnish opportunity for the native mental powers to exer- 
cise their natural sphere, the latest formulation of thought would 
make it the right of the opening mind to an environment which not 
only affords the better standards for imitation, but also furnishes 
opportunity for free play to that tendency to give the individual touch 
to the product. This will work disaster to the idea that a new method 
must be devised for doing all things when the transition is made from 
the lower school to the higher, or to the world outside. Greater than 
that, it will recognize the individuality which is embodied in the 
developing personality ; it will recognize that something which, if it 
have an opportunity to expand, makes each soul conscious of its 
kinship with the eternal. 

With the appearance of Dr. William B. Carpenter's work on Mental 
Physiology, in 1874, there was given a setting to the relation between mind 
and body which, he hoped, would stimulate some other investigator to 
develop "that science of human nature which has yet to be built-up on a 
much broader basis than any philosopher has hitherto taken as his 
foundation." In a most valuable chapter on habit he opened the sub- 
ject by calling attention to the well-known laws underlying the con- 
struction and rejuvenation of the vegetable and animal organism in the 
process of nutrition. Probably no reader of that succinct statement 
found in it anything that was before unknown ; and yet, after the appli- 
cation of those familiar facts and principles to the activity of the 
nervous system of man, a new point of view was held from which to 
consider habit in the mental life, and particularly in the formative 
period of childhood and youth. 

Within the last quarter of a century the subject has been discussed 
by English, French, German, and American writers, from the same 
standpoint as that taken by Dr. Carpenter. From the position that 
repetition makes modes of action easier, and often automatic, there 
was an advance step made when the scientist raised the question : Why 
does the nerve-current traverse a certain path the first time ? The 
answers first offered were not satisfactory. The failure lay in the 
attempt to base the explanation on a conception that limited habit to 
a purely physiological basis. Mr. James, raising and meeting the ques- 
tion along this line, concludes his answer with the following comment 



RECENT PSYCHOLOGIC. ETHIC, AND LOGICAL MODES 27 

on it : "All this is vague to the last degree, and amounts to little 
more than saying that a new path may be formed by the sort of chances 
that in nervous material are likely to occur. But vague as it is, it is 
really the last word of our wisdom in the matter." The question 
raised did not interest his readers to any great extent. The chapter 
contained enough that was definite. Like Dr. Carpenter, after present- 
ing the subject from the physiological side, he uses all the force of that 
presentation to arouse his readers to the ethical nature of the habitual 
mode of activity. The necessity for establishing automatism in con- 
trol of the petty details and the daily duties of life is painted in vivid 
colors. The chapters written by these two brilliant men are decided 
contributions to psychological and ethical theory ; and yet, in neither 
does the writer rise to that command of the subject which shows that the 
initiative and the habit, the cause that makes the nerve-current traverse 
a certain path the first time and the repetition of the act, are the two 
aspects of a unity. The common failure of long-continued dictated 
repetition to set up a habit gave no light in regard to this process. 
Dr. Carpenter speaks of " the strength of the organic tendency 
which produces the persistence," just missing the explanation of the 
point involved, the origin of the organic tendency. The investiga- 
tions of biology have been pushed a step beyond the advance position 
attained by Dr. Carpenter when he concluded that "there was strong 
reason for attributing inherent motility to some kinds of muscular 
tissue," to the position which makes that inherent motility, that tend- 
ency to movement for the maintenance of life, a characteristic of life. 
To the non-scientific mind this statement of that which in the light of 
today is involved in the conclusions of the scientist of yesterday seems 
a mere play upon words. It is, however, in restatements of truths with 
a transfer of emphasis that new meanings are given the old, and the 
doors to the worlds of nature and of thought are opened wider, giving 
to humanity a broader view of the structure and mechanism of the 
universe. 

Following some principles of current biology and psychology to 
their logical outcome, Mr. Baldwin in his work on Mental Develop- 
ment has taken up the question, "What made the current traverse the 
path the first time ? " and has worked out a very definite, not vague, 
answer : " Habit expresses the tendency of the organism to secure and 



28 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

to retain its vital stimulations. On this view, a habit begins before the 
movement which illustrates it actually takes place; the organism is 
endowed with a habit, if that be not considered a contradiction. Its 
life-process involves just the tendency which habit goes on to confirm 
and to extend. The process of habit, having as its end the main- 
tenance of a condition of stimulation, is set in train by the initial 
stimulus. And the discharge of it in the path which again 'hits' the 
stimulus is the function of this stimulus rather than another, and 
reflects, exactly and alone, the fact that then and there is a stimulus 
whose influence upon the vital processes is good." Here we have a 
rational explanation of the conditions underlying the formation of 
habits. Not by chance, not by the imposition of an external com- 
mand, does the first movement along the nerve structure take this or 
that direction. Here we find an explanation of the frequent failure to 
make a mode of action habitual by repetition. 

The same criticism which was made on Professor Baldwin's lapse 
into uncertainty regarding the beginnings of imitation applies to his 
latest study of habit, in Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Devel- 
opment, especially when he enters upon the discussion of the moral 
sense. If "we do right by habitually imitating a larger self whose 
injunctions run counter to the tendencies of our partial selves," then is 
there a begging of the analogy between the development of the organ- 
ism as taught by biology, and the development of mind as taught by 
psychology. It is hoped that upon making his next essay into the 
fields to which he has let down the bars, Professor Baldwin will show 
that he has thought the conclusions of his general statements into, and 
through, the particular activities to which they apply in psychology 
and ethics. And yet, in the main, he establishes the analogy from 
which we deduce the principle : whether it be largely physical or largely 
mental, the same law holds in regard to an individual mode of action 
becoming habitual ; within the being — the individual — must originate 
the tendency to acquire control, to make automatic the easy carriage, 
the clean-cut enunciation, the gentle manner, the careful observation, 
the accurate statement, the magnanimous judgment. The habit uncon- 
sciously acquired is often to its possessor (if he would know himself), 
or to the intelligent observer, an indication — sometimes a revelation — 
of hitherto undreamed-of potentiality ; its antagonist, the habit which 



RECENT PSYCHOLOGIC, ETHIC, AND LOGICAL MODES 29 

will not form, is equally valuable as a revealer of conditions. The 
recognition of the origin of habit in the tendency leads to the construc- 
tion of a new conception of the method of change of habit. The idea 
that objectionable habits are to be "broken " develops into a new one, 
that the individual trait which persists, together with control gained 
by exercise of the old habit, must be reorganized for the attainment of 
a new end, set by the individual. This new conception, instead of 
presenting destruction as the outcome of reformation, strengthens the 
self-respect by the requirement to search for the elements of power, 
and then utilize them in the new mode. The dull routine of trying to 
form habits by wearisome repetitions, the discouraging process of 
trying to overcome the enemy, the old habit, only to find it upon the 
first lapse of vigilance reinstated in full sway, must give way to a higher 
type of activity. The individual must, under the stimulus of interest 
in a consciously originated and defined end, utilize inherited and 
acquired tendencies and powers in organizing and reorganizing for its 
attainment. The satisfaction that comes with exercise along lines that 
are peculiar to the individual will be secured by everyone, in greater 
or less degree, through automatic action. But whether this shall 
reduce the life to a narrow mechanism that stifles and dwarfs, or shall 
expand the life into a developing process that inspires and enlarges, 
depends upon the origination and construction of the end or aim by 
which the tendency is called into action. 

A third subject on which there has been excellent work done in 
modern psychology is attention. Parents and pedagogues have from 
time immemorial called upon the child with the wandering gaze or 
listless attitude to pay attention. The physical signs have been so 
easily interpreted that from those alone the inattentive mind was 
detected. And yet the adult has often been amazed to find, at a later 
period, that the amount retained by the seemingly attentive was little 
in comparison with that controlled by the inattentive. The English 
school of psychology, from Locke down to Carpenter, did not think 
the subject a profitable one for investigation. The only object in 
referring to their failure to recognize this activity is to emphasize the 
prevalence and influence of their attitude at this late day. 

If the general consensus of opinion as to the relation between 
mind-wandering and attention were taken, it would be found to embody 



3° ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

the idea that in trying to follow oral discourse the mind of the listener 
can often be kept from wandering by the mechanical repetition of the 
words of the speaker. Here, in a nutshell, is the perversity of the 
theory which often makes dullards of the young. What value is it to 
keep the mind from wandering if it is tethered to words, not intelli- 
gence ? The failure to distinguish sharply between the discriminating 
alertness of attention and the undistinguishmg passivity of the mere 
repetition of words is due, probably, to the non-recognition of the 
activity of feeling, as well as of intellect, in the process of attention. 
This over-emphasizing the function of the intellect, and ignoring that 
of feeling, must have taken its rise in the philosophy of the Stoics. The 
characteristics of the ideal of attention it involves are isolation of the 
individual attending from the content of that to which he attends. 
Placing the origin of the generally accepted theory of attention in that 
system of thought, we have an easy explanation of that attitude toward 
the process of attention which omits the feeling aspect. In the reaction 
against this generally accepted idea of attention there have devel- 
oped different modes of viewing the activity. Among the different 
theories advanced is one which bases attention on interest. The keen 
observer of people uses various expressions in which attention and 
interest are associated. "They will not give attention because they 
have lost interest;" "Because he cannot get them interested they 
will not attend;" "It is evident that they are losing interest, for 
they are giving attention by fits and starts." These expressions 
raise the question whether interest is the base upon which attention 
rests, or is the emotional, or feeling, aspect of attention. Whether 
it be base or aspect, it certainly is not merely a forerunner whose 
activity ceases when that of attention begins. In a recent article on 
" Reflective Attention," Dr. Dewey makes intrinsic interest the basis 
of spontaneous attention, and a query or doubt the basis of voluntary 
or reflective attention. It is a new presentation of the origin and 
process of this activity. The part of his article which specially con- 
cerns the study herein made is in regard to the origination of voluntary 
attention. He says: "The problem is one's own; hence also the 
impetus, the stimulus to attention, is one's own ; hence also the 
training secured is one's own — it is discipline, or gain in power of 
control." Here again is a process familiar to unscientific thought. 



RECENT PSYCHOLOGIC, ETHIC, AND LOGICAL MODES 31 

Stated on its functional side by science ; and that function is self- 
development, growth, not through the effort to achieve an end which 
was dictated by another, but through the effort to secure an end which 
the self has determined. 

In these three modes of activity which have been briefly reviewed, 
it is evident that in the most modern point of view regarding the 
development of the individual the first essential is the recognition of 
teleological aspect in every form of mental activity. In this recogni- 
tion there is necessitated that play of the mental powers which is 
according to nature, and which, therefore, makes the individual attain 
to the highest degree of strength possible for him. This free play of 
thought cannot go on if the individual is isolated from the considera- 
tion of the ends for which his life is spent. A cooperation in deter- 
mining the ends for which life is spent is necessary to the evolution of 
mind. 

Mr. James has expressed the theory of teleological functioning so 
well that I quote his remarks at some length : 

"The reflex theory of the mind commits physiologists to regarding 
the mind as an essentially teleological mechanism. I mean by this 
that the conceiving or theorizing faculty — the mind's middle depart- 
ment — functions exclusively for the sake of ends that do not exist at 
all in the world of impressions we receive by way of our senses, but 
are set by our emotional and practical subjectivity altogether. It is a 
transformation of the world of our impressions into a totally different 
world, the world of our conception ; and the transformation is effected 
in the interests of our volitional nature, and for no other purpose what- 
ever We easily delude ourselves about this middle stage. Some- 
times we think it final, and sometimes we fail to see amid the monstrous 
diversity in the length and complication of the cogitations which may 
fill it that it can have but one essential function — the function of defin- 
ing the direction which our activity, immediate or remote, shall take." 

"'Receiving impressions' to all eternity would never result in 
developing what we call 'mind.' The active response, the forth- 
putting of the mind's own powers according to its own constitution, 
is the prominent and the really impressive thing for the psychologist." 

It is a commonplace that on each new step in the progress of 
humanity are found certain words which are ever afterward identified 



3* ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

with the particular period in which they were brought forward. One 
of those characteristic terms in psychologic and ethic theory of today 
is activity. For a time we had the compound " self-activity," but the 
"self" has gradually been eliminated from this distinguishing word, 
which is used with varying degrees of looseness and definiteness. Mr. 
Bradley, in a chapter devoted to activity, lays stress upon the time- 
sequence involved, which, he very justly says, is necessary if the use of 
the term retains sense. "The element in its meaning, which comes to 
light at once, is succession and change. In all activity something 
clearly becomes something else." "Activity seems to be self-caused 
change. A transition that begins with and comes out of the thing 
itself is the process where we feel that it is activity. But the thing can- 
not act unless the act is occasioned; then the transition, so far, is 
imported into it by something outside. If we look at the process as 
the coming out of its nature, the process is its activity." Although 
Mr. Bradley does not seem satisfied with this analysis of the term, yet 
it presents fairly or suggests the answer to the question : What is the 
nature of activity, a process which transfigures a cause into something 
different ? 

So easily is a term formulated and its essential principle so soon 
obscured that it seemed best at this point to call attention directly to 
this distinguishing idea of the present day, in order that the recogni- 
tion of its vital element be assured. Dealing, as psychology does, with 
the mechanism by which we come to know the world in its material 
and spiritual aspects, it forms the basis of our knowledge of mind in 
its development. Its problems, however, are less difficult than those 
of ethics; the conditions of the first lie in the individual only, while 
those of the second underlie the relations of individuals. The adult, 
sustaining the relation of teacher or parent, in using his knowledge of 
psychology as an instrument in the process of the education of others 
occupies an intermediate ground which might be called the ethico- 
psychological. Some questions rising in that territory have been con- 
sidered generally in the discussion of the term "activity." Further 
study will be made in the domain of social ethics only. 

The tenor of all that is here offered will be in accord with Thomas 
Hill Green's Prolegomena to Ethics, a book from which I have received 
much stimulus for thought on this subject. No attempt will be made 



RECENT PSYCHOLOGIC, ETHIC, AMD LOGICAL MODES 33 

to enter into a discussion of all questions that may be subsumed under 
this subject. Only three will be considered : the nature of a free 
cause m the intellectual and moral life; the motives of change- the 
relations between individuals engaged in setting and realizing a com- 
mon aim. 

One of the benefits which must ensue ere long from the introduc- 
tion of scientific method into the way in which man approaches the 
problems, not only in the physical world, but in the moral also will 
be a removal of the chains which more or less closely bind him 'to a 
belief in fixed mechanism. As generally understood, the relation of 
cause and effect, as applied to man, means that a uniformly antecedent 
event (or cause) determines a uniformly consequent event (or effect) 
This makes him a mere link in a chain. Analysis shows that the man- 
ner of the origin of the cause determines the vitality of the movement 
If " the cause or motive is constituted by an act of self-consciousness 
which ,s not a natural event, an act in which the agent presents to him- 
self a certain idea of himself-of himself doing or himself enjoying- 
as an idea of which the realization forms for the time his good," the whole 
movement will be removed from thesphere of a fixed and narrow mechan- 
ism, the individual will not be a link in a chain or a cog in a wheel 

Though in the main we indorse Shakespeare's theory of the con- 
tinuity of cause and effect in humanity — 

" There is a history in all men's lives 
Figuring the nature of the times deceased : 
The which observed, a man may prophesy 
With a near aim, of the main chance of things 
As yet not come to life, which in their seeds 
And weak beginnings lie intreasurdd. 
Such things become the hatch and brood of time." 

yet there is one possibility unexpressed bv the poet, and that is 
the activity of the human being as a free cause. A new but potent 
"occasion" may be of so powerful a nature as to rouse in the result 
ing activity elements which were latent, and the actor may give to 
himself, and hence to his acts, a different and undreamed-of character 
Now, this new trait in things not yet come to life comes, not from the 
man's or woman's cutting aloof from the "determined world as a 
whole," but "from his acting absolutely from himself in the action 
through which that world is." By and through the man's action as a 



34 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

"free cause" the character of those things which in their seeds lie 
intreasur^d, as well as the character of the man, is given a new deter- 
mination. Not to affect the acts and the self is to be a mechanical 
cause. It seems hardly necessary to say that in the case where the 
man acts as a free cause not only is there a different quality of hatch 
and brood of time, but man himself is a different man. The dull 
routine that becomes a part of life when the human being is a cause 
not distinguished from the determined world in which it acts, simply 
stifles the potentialities which lie dormant in that soul. Instead of 
being an organic part of the community life to which the man should 
belong, he is isolated as a part of its mechanism. 

The motives underlying a change are closely interwoven with those 
of free cause and the setting of the common aim, but they may be 
profitably analyzed. There are three widely different motives, lead- 
ing to a change in the mode of thought and its expression. Either 
one of these, acting alone, may apparently induce the same result that 
would follow from one of the others. The lowest of the three is that 
fear which denies to a soul the right to its own ideals, and makes the 
self set up the ideals of another for realization. A second motive 
leading some to change their theory and practice, is the love of 
novelty. The soul, having no ideals of its own to realize, lacks that 
guiding star which would draw it ever upward, and so looks now here, 
now there for a new object to pursue. It is not uncommon for lovers 
of novelty to attempt the most radical changes upon a few hours' 
notice. The third and highest motive inducing change in thought 
and action is that based on a conviction that the present is barren, 
and a better is attainable. The germs of progress are sown in this 
soil. The conception of a better may at first be dim, but it will 
become more and more clearly defined as the soul searches for that 
which it desires. 

Whether the result of a change shall be a copy, lacking permanent 
individual, vitalizing force; or shall be an erratic offshoot, leading to 
nothing ; or shall be an outward expression of a persistent, individual, 
developing ideal, depends upon the motivation of the change ; whether 
it be fear or subserviency, the love of novelty, or conviction and desire. 
The relapse from a seemingly high plane of living and thinking to a 
former low plane is the reaction from a change that was determined by 



RECEA T PS YCHO LOGIC, E THIC, AND LOGICAL MODES 3 5 

one of the lower forms of motives. The individual may inhibit tend- 
encies and habits for a long time, but mere inhibition neither points 
the way nor leads to higher realms. It is unnecessary to appeal fur- 
ther to experience as regards the influence of the motive for change 
on the character of the result, and on the character of the individual. 

The next topic — the relation of individuals in setting a common 
aim — is a continuation of the question of cause and free cause. Char-' 
acter and conduct stand to each other in the relation of the theory 
and practice of life. If they are divorced, that is, if the idea which 
is the motive of conduct is not a construction of the reason and feel- 
ings, is instead a photographic reproduction of another's construc- 
tion, the conduct which eventuates is not the second part of a unity, 
the expression of the originating and constructing activity of the soul. 
The reproduction will serve as an occasion for action, but not for that 
action, that conduct, which is the objectification of " man's conscious- 
ness of himself as an end to himself." The conduct will not be an 
index of the animating principle of the man. To lose sight of the 
necessary integration of the two is to lose sight of the process which 
makes for (or against) life itself. This process is essentially the same 
for all, the weak as well as the strong. 

The " absolutely desirable " for man taken from its individual or 
particularistic setting becomes the universal called the good. The 
good has a dual character : as an ideal it is an impelling force, urging 
from within that it must realize itself; as a motive it is a drawing 
power, urging from without that spirit enter into and take possession 
of that to which it gave original determination. In this action, as an 
internal and as an external power, the end of the good is recognized 
by the will as a subjective construction and as an independent object. 
Or, to express it differently, the practical activity of the idea has to 
deal with an object which it knows has not existence; it likewise 
knows the determined end to be in the mind ; and the object to be 
something external to the self. To the individuals making up a com- 
munity in which for each the " absolutely desirable " is the character 
behind the conduct, the effort of each to better himself would make 
absolutely necessary a social life in which the life-process would have 
its fullest opportunity, for the ideal always tends to realize itself in 
action. An ideal is not, as is generally assumed, an ethereal something 



36 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

which has no connection with the practical side of life. It is the ideal 
which is behind every act of the will, and which by its insistence upon 
realization gives color and tone to our whole mental life. 

On the other hand, to the individuals making up a community in 
which the "absolutely desirable" of an assertive man or woman is the 
animating spirit of the conduct of all, the social requirement would 
not be a necessity, for the life-process in character and conduct would 
not exist ; the assertively selfish would be more selfish, the timidly weak 
would be made weaker. What is true of the influence of that type of 
mind which revels in seeing its aims set up as the aim of the members 
of a social community whose occupations differ, and hence who have 
other stimuli of thought and action, is true in a much greater degree 
when the members belong to an organization, working within prescribed 
limits. The stated object of the organization, and the acceptance of 
that statement, in a measure commits all the members to a common 
creed ; and in just so far as the many phrase their theories and beliefs 
as they have been phrased for them will there be a weakening of the 
individual effort to read new elements into the theory upon which they 
act. This does not necessitate an abandonment of the institutions of 
society, neither does it imply a lack of personal freedom because of 
the institutions. It does, however, emphasize the need for conditions 
in all institutions and organizations which shall call into action the 
intellectual power, as well as the spontaneity of feeling, in every mem- 
ber, from the least responsible to the executive at the top. Neither 
egoism nor altruism is the principle which makes the life-process. The 
two are but the different phases which, combined, make for that order 
of society which strengthens both the weak and the strong. As John 
Stuart Mill expresses it : " The very corner-stone of an education 
intended to form great minds must be the recognition of the principle 
that the object is to call forth the greatest possible quantity of '\Xi\.t\- 
leciual power, and to inspire the intensest /ove of truth; and this with- 
out a particle of regard to the results to which the exercise of that 
power may lead, even though it should conduct the pupil to opinions 
diametrically opposite to those of his teachers. We say this, not 
because we think opinions unimportant, but because of the immense 
importance which we attach to them ; for in proportion to the degree 
of intellectual power and love of truth which we succeed in creating 



RECENT PSYCHOLOGIC, ETHIC, AND LOGICAL MODES 37 

is the certainty that (whatever may happen in any one particular 
instance) in the aggregate of instances true opinions will be the result ; 
and intellectual power and practical love of truth are alike impossible 
where the reasoner is shown his conclusions and informed beforehand 
that he is expected to arrive at them." It is necessary to keep in view 
this element of intellectual activity because of the generally accepted 
idea of morality, and of obedience to its established laws or rules, which 
are often merely specific directions. It is the independent play of the 
intellect (the logical process) which makes order a necessity in what 
sometimes seems like a world of chaos; and yet to the great majority 
the terms " free activity" and "freedom" imply anarchy. The dis- 
cussion of these terms will be carried on many years before they will 
be understood in their true significance. It is with " freedom " as with 
the "state of nature," which was long a favorite term with writers on 
political topics. Neither, correctly interpreted, means that humanity 
has only to be removed from the restrictions of social organization 
to become perfect. 

Each recognizes the potentialities of the soul, and the tendency 
toward orderliness which persists in its general movement ; each has in 
view the possibility of freedom — a higher type of self-control than has 
yet been seen in any civil community. True freedom regards the 
social law as something which, permeating the whole social fabric, lays 
upon each member obligations to high thinking and right living, and 
also guarantees the exercise of the individual's right to determine him- 
self. The divine law is the universal toward which freedom tends. 
The aim and end of education should be the development of intel- 
lectual power that makes for order, not through skepticism and 
anarchy, but through faith and freedom according to the law of 
being. 

In reviewing the attitude of modern thought toward the subject of 
activity, we must make one venture into the domain of logic. From 
the formulation of the doctrine of the syllogism by Aristotle until the 
early part of the present century, a scientific statement, a judgment, 
was not considered fully established unless it could be proved that it 
conformed to the syllogistic process. At the present day the syllogism 
is not held in high repute. Modern logic is presented as a study of 
the way in which mind reasons, infers, judges, abstracts, and generalizes ; 



38 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

it insists upon two things as necessary : the mind must have con- 
cepts, ideas, and must use these ideas so that they will develop in the 
act of judging. An account of the steps by which the logician, after 
discerning the errors in ancient and mediaeval theory, has reached this 
position in a struggle of fifty years, would demonstrate the need for 
patience in surveying the rate at which the race progresses toward the 
attainment of truth. While the nineteenth-century logicians have been 
evolving theory based on these two essentials, popular opinion has 
clung to scholastic logic with its finished concepts, and its manipula- 
tion of these for the purpose of comparison and classification. The 
origination and the process of judging have not been considered as 
necessarily concerned with the evolution of mental power. According 
to popular theory, the initiative in the formal act has its rise in the 
obedient will, rather than in a state of tension induced in the mind by 
a doubt as to the unity of a simple fact, or complex of facts, and an 
explanatory comprehensive idea under which the facts, apparentl)', 
seem to gather. While it is true that the doubt may be occasioned by 
hearing another state the doubt as existing in his mind, yet it is not a 
doubt for the first person before his thought-movement is arrested by 
the question suggested. But having the tension made conscious, there 
is still not the act of judging if the doubt is disposed of by reference 
to a fixed idea. According to Dr. Dewey, upon whose lectures on 
logic the following is based, when the idea is used unconsciously and 
without examination, we get simple apprehension only. Simple appre- 
hension must be recognized as a mode of activity, but too long has it 
been confounded with the act of judgment. The trouble is, particu- 
larly in institutional life, that, these processes being treated as identi- 
cal, the subordinate individual is in a state of arrested development. 
He believes that he passes judgment on the inception of affairs and 
their conduct which are vital to the object for which the institution 
exists, when he merely refers new questions to a fixed idea for sub- 
sumption. The one in command is in a different state of arrested 
development ; one resulting from the lack of stimuli originating in 
judging the judgments of others which may be opposed to his own. 
The tyranny of an intellectual superiority is immeasurably severer than 
that of social class superiority. Cooperation in the realm of mind is of 
much slower growth than cooperation in the world of labor. The 



RECENT PSYCHOLOGIC, ETHIC, AND LOGICAL MODES 39 

trained intellect, isolated from the less formally trained, fears the 
approach of an " intellectual democracy." 

The first step in enlarging the mental power of the mass of people 
living in civilization must be the change of this fear to faith in the 
latent tendency of the human mind to develop in accord with the 
divine mind. Instead of an acceptance of simple apprehension as the 
type of judgment best suited for those not gifted with the strong 
individualistic tendencies which make for social right-living, the great 
must make themselves greater through urging forward to the exercise 
of judgment those who through youth or subordination may tend to 
accept an ideal of the superior in age or position as the unvarying 
standard. The educated men and women who are accomplishing 
something, who are making the world more wholesome, never screen 
themselves behind an intellectual sentimentalism which fears a day 
when the poor in their hours of labor, as well as of rest from the struggle 
for life, will enjoy the things of the mind, because of a sturdy men- 
tality. It is not the fact that the less strong distinguish between the 
fixed and fluid ideas that makes a part of the race decadent ; it is that 
the supposedly strong cannot so distinguish when brought face to face 
with life in the institutions of society. 

Leaving the topic of simple apprehension, the question arises: What 
is the process of judging as analyzed by modern thought ? It originates, 
as does simple apprehension, in doubt, but instead of fitting new things 
to an old idea, it sets up an interaction. The subject of the judgment 
is not a something given, as the subject by a process outside of the 
judgment. Its given quality is something that judgment itself gives 
it. It is that which is taken as the basis for further investigation. This 
does not mean that the given will not be transformed by the process. 
It will be transformed. The given is data in scientific sense. Here 
we have, not a something carefully described by another, and this 
description, without analysis, set up as the subject of a judgment. 
The very thing given assumes a functional activity when the process of 
judging begins. It is not laid in a form prescribed by the old school 
of logicians, to be pressed under another. It arouses the intellect to 
an activity somewhat like attention in the psychologic process. The 
traits in the subject that bear on the doubt are selected as material for 
the new experience which will come out of the whole act. This 



40 ISOLA TION IN THE SCHOOL 

subject is made more definite as its place in the whole situation becomes 
plainer. A point in moral or educational theory cannot form the sub- 
ject of a judgment if it is kept isolated from the practical situation 
that obtains, and is treated as unrelated to the past and present. It 
must make evident a reality which is to be placed in a system. But 
where is the interaction, between what ? Between the subject, the 
question, the statement that has raised the doubt, and the predicate, 
the fluid idea. The subject is not mere existence, and the predicate, 
idea, or meaning set over against existence. Such a distinction is mis- 
leading ; it seems to indicate that the two, existence and meaning, are 
separated, and the problem is how to unite them. They, the subject 
and predicate, represent the same reality or experience, the same system. 
They are a distinction of aspects, not of portions or elements. They 
are not distinguished before the act of judging begins, but in having 
begun, then the points of identity are established by the comparison 
of similar qualities in the presentation and the conception ; the points 
of difference are established in the same way. That comparison shall 
result in clear distinction, the mind must consciously set for itself the 
problem of determining the relative values of a certain definite phase 
of the unity involved in the subject and predicate. The activity in 
deciding what the uncertainty is, and then using and rejecting neces- 
sary and unnecessary elements which the mind marshals before itself, 
and finally gathering the results into one unity, is that functioning of 
the judgment which is in the natural process of the evolution of mental 
power. In this process the individual adds to his mental content by 
the classification always of the present capital, and by the demands 
made often upon that which was not previously known to him. In 
judgment, as treated by the latest scientific study, the two factors, 
individuality, and action and reaction, that is, cooperation, are made 
indispensable ; the individuality lies largely in the origination ; the 
cooperation is the interchange between the situation as it is pre- 
sented and the full, fuller, knowledge of the objective realm in 
which the elements which aroused doubtful condition have their free 
play. 

Each of the various processes herein discussed originates in an 
activity which is the natural mode of expression of the individual, and 
is the positive influence in the continued evolution of the native 



RECENT PSYCHOLOGIC, ETHIC, AND LOGICAL MODES 41 

powers until their decline sets in through disease or senility. Each 
may have its motif in an activity which is a quasi-natural mode of 
expression of the individual, and a quasi-positive influence in a devel- 
opment which is arrested before the native powers have reached 
maturity. Habits formed through the effort of the self to acquire 
control of the impulses which seek for expression ; attention trained 
through the effort to bring under control in the focus of vision 
images which press forward ; judgment developed through the effort 
to identify and to differentiate qualities in two widely different aspects 
of a unity, are evolutionary. In such formation of habits, training of 
attention, and development of judgment, the self directs every part of 
the organization, physical and mental, concerned in securing an end 
which is at first dimly suggested by the impulses, the interests, the 
doubts. As the activity goes on, seemingly inharmonious tendencies 
gradually reinforce each other, inhibit opposing elements, and finally 
cooperate in a unified movement. These processes, so developed, con- 
stitute, from the beginning of life, the instrumentalities by which we 
advance to a more highly organized and, hence, simplified technic in 
all affairs, personal, economic, social, and political. They are the 
means by which we change, from time to time, our modes of work, of 
recreation, of thought ; transferring the stress so that we do not find 
ourselves left behind, able to manufacture old wares only — wares 
which are no longer in demand; do not find it easier to wear out in 
the old groove than to rest by change of interest ; do not find our 
judgment depreciated by others because it persists in dealing with the 
concepts formed long ago ; depreciated because its decisions before 
rendered are familiar to the listeners. These last conditions in which 
men and women behold themselves cut off from the onward movement 
of the world about them, isolated from the fullness of life which gives 
healthful occupation for the body and the mind, are the results of that 
quasi-natural mode of activity which over-exercises certain muscles, 
or centers, or mental powers, in the attempt, through drill, to secure 
ends originated by others; and of that quasi-positive influence which, 
for a time, often gives exact duplicates of those external aims ; but at 
last, in the words of Dr. Harris, "so arrest the development of the soul 
in a mechanical method of thinking as to prevent further growth into 
spiritual insight." 



42 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

In this method of training, the self does not gain that control of its 
impulses which makes for unification, so that potentialities may be 
adapted to a new environment ; it has acquired the power to do spe- 
cific things in a specified place, and these isolated acts often prove 
handicaps in new surroundings with new demands, so that incapacity 
results from the non-recognition of the maleficent influence of isolation, 
where there should be unification resulting from the natural and posi- 
tive activity of the soul. The same holds true in regard to knowledge 
which is acquired because someone has decided that such facts are 
useful. Knowledge, isolated from the cause which makes it a necessity 
to the learner, and from the effect which makes it valuable to him, is 
mere information which is rarely at command when called for. 

It would be a difficult undertaking to find a person who has the 
temerity to deny the existence of a life-process in every vegetable and 
animal organism. That variations as to power in this or that part of 
the process are found in species and in individuals would be readily 
conceded, and that the process has its characteristic stages would be 
recognized. But when the tnental life-process is brought up for dis- 
cussion it becomes evident that people do not so generally and thor- 
oughly believe in it as in the life-process of a physical organism. That 
mind develops through functioning is an article in the creeds of most 
people; but that it functions in obedience to law is an article which 
would be rejected from most of those creeds. The accumulation of 
statements of the observations and conclusions of others, the ability 
to recount in their order the steps taken by those others in making 
observations and arriving at conclusions, would answer the general 
conception of mind-activity. According to that general conception, 
those progressive modifications of the individual and society that mark 
an advance in power do not come because of the functioning of all 
minds. They have come as the product of the action of the thinking 
few, who are called thinkers because their mental life-process is carried 
on in accord with the law underlying it. 

Were faith in this law more common, fewer would conceive of good 
habits as something drilled in, in many a hard-fought battle; of atten- 
tion as a kind of struggle in manipulating images, a struggle dur- 
ing which is frequently heard from the lips of the one trying to set 
the aim of the activity, the exhortation, " Do stop guessing and pay 



RECENT PSYCHOLOGIC, ETHIC, AND LOGICAL MODES 43 

attention ;" of judgment — but here in the purely intellectual realms of 
activity we find nothing comparable to those drills and exhortations, 
because the mind refuses to judge under direction. It may make a 
sycophantic pretense of agreement, but neither superior nor subordi- 
nate is deceived thereby. This breakdown in the realms of pure 
thought has given rise to the opinion that many naturally have no 
judgment, or at best only poor judgment; that of the seething mass 
of humanity only a small fractional part is capable of any develop- 
ment beyond that secured in accord with the method which arrests 
growth. 

All through infancy and childhood, all through life until the time 
of decline, there are periods and seasons when certain activities are 
predominant. If in those different stages the dominant impulse or 
interest be given its natural free play, there will result those tastes and 
powers which make each soul know its peculiar talents. Every soul 
may not have sufficient individual energy to command recognition as 
being talented, but there are inherent in each those tendencies which, 
with their infinitesimal variations in grouping, make a being different 
from others — a being peculiarly itself. If these varied tendencies, 
elements of strength, be developed in accord with the mental life- 
process, then will each human being know the joy of living in accord 
with its better, its true, nature. We revel in the beauties of forest 
and field, pouring forth our admiration over the modest violet and the 
stalwart oak, differing so widely, and yet each illustrative of the unity 
which pervades life. Only a brief survey is necessary in order that we 
may know how successfully either is carrying on the function of nutri- 
tion by which the plant maintains itself, and what stage it has reached 
in the reproductive function. Our wonder and reverence do not ter- 
minate with the recognition of these two functions which together make 
the life-process of every plant ; as we look at violets and oaks, the 
infinitesimal variations are such that no two violets, no two oaks are 
indistinguishable ; with the same antecedents, both structural and func- 
tional, there is in each violet and each oak that spontaneity which 
makes for a distinctive life. Herbert Spencer concludes his search for 
the cause of variation in individuals and species with this dictum : 
" We must say in all cases adaptive change of function is the primary 
and ever-acting cause of that change of structure which constitutes 



44 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

variation, and that the variation which appears to be 'spontaneous' is 
derivative and secondary ; " yet he has missed the main question at 
issue. It is this : Why does one organism adapt itself to a change of 
function, while another heeds not the " unequal and ever-varying 
actions of incident forces on its different parts"? The spontaneous 
action upon that for which its individual nature seeks is the cause of 
the "adaptive change of function." In writing on "Plant Relations" 
Dr. Coulter says : " It is evident that there must be rivalry among 
plants in occupying an area, and that those plants which can most 
nearly utilize identical conditions will be the most intense rivals. 
For example, a great many young oaks may start up over an area, and 
it is evident that the individuals must come into sharp competition with 
one another, and that but few of them succeed in establishing them- 
selves permanently." Now, if all of this activity, this rivalry, of the young 
oaks is mere reaction on the environment, why do they not all react 
alike, and so all live or die together with the same adaptations to the 
peculiarities of the surrounding, stimulating conditions ? It is in the 
spontaneity of the successful individual oaks that the adaptations origi- 
nate. Popular theory has made for humanity an advance upon, "All 
evils result from non-adaptation of constitutions to conditions," by 
saying, " Man must conquer his environment." 

Without further discussion of individuality in the vegetable world, 
this question may be raised : If each and every plant has its distin- 
guishing traits which originate spontaneously and give it individuality 
throughout life, how dare we deny to any soul the evolution of its 
peculiar traits which, spontaneously initiated, make for individuality; 
become its talents, its genius? In the quotation from Dr. Coulter 
there is the suggestion of that competition which is comprehended in 
the " survival of the fittest," and so, on first thought, one would infer 
that development of individual traits would only increase the strife 
between the members of any human society, that individualism would 
rend all social organizations. Competition between myriads of human 
beings all trained to a set end is the result of the non-recognition of the 
life-process with its minute differentiations which make the special talents. 
With the development which recognizes the essence of personality to 
be what the individual makes of his original equipment, a larger world 
will be open as the field of operations, and so each can more nearly 



RECEN7 PSYCHOLOGIC, ETHIC, AND LOGICAL MODES 45 

approach the realization of possibilities which must forever lie dor- 
mant if each soul does not acquire throughout the voyage of life more 
and more strength because of a unified control of its variant powers. 
David Starr Jordan sums up environment and activity in a few telling 
sentences: "The pressure of environment gives only pain in itself. 
Ennui is chronic pain, nature's warning against the dry-rot of functional 
inactivity. To enjoy life man or animal must be doing — working, 
thinking, fighting, loving — something positive. And no thought or 
feeling of the mind is complete till it has somehow brought itself into 
action." 

The greatest question before civilized nations today is whether the 
law of the mental life-process shall be recognized in education as origi- 
nal in all minds, or as peculiar to certain types only. Or, to put it in 
another way, shall the mental powers of the few be exercised according 
to law, and those of the many be isolated from that which evolves 
power — the initiative in action — or shall all be active as organic 
parts of the thinking world ? Rude self-assertion and hopeless self- 
renunciation are the attendants upon an abnormal mental restraint, as 
disease and weakness are the attendants upon physical inaction. As 
a high degree of energy and reasonable powers of endurance are the 
result of a regimen in accord with the law underlying the life-process 
of the physical organism, so a well-poised self-assertion and a judicious 
self-renunciation are the results of an activity in harmony with the law 
underlying the mental life-process. 



III. 

THE FUNCTION OF A SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY. 

Following close upon this question of activity in the mental life 
as presented by modern theory is that pertaining to the function of 
the school in this government. In its general aim the function of the 
private and the public school is the same, but, because the latter is 
directly dependent upon the state for its life, it has been subjected to 
a closer scrutiny both as to methods and results. Critics of democracy 
and critics of the public schools unite in making essentially the same 
criticism on our form of government and on our schools, though they 
express themselves differently. The first, the critics of democracy, say 
that its tendency is to breed many commonplace, average men upon 
whom the responsibilities of the state will fall, instead of a few great 
men who might easily assume the duties of statesmanship. Critics of 
the public school say that it is dominated by the theory of uniformity, 
and they ask why teachers who help to make the school a mere mill, 
grinding uniform grists, are retained. The obverse of this is found 
among the teachers. An energetic and thoughtful part of the corps is 
strenuously decrying that form of systeraatism of the schools which 
tends to make automatons of the teachers. This opposition began 
before criticism of the method of the schools was well defined in the 
minds of those on the outside. Here we have a curious condition of 
affairs. The objects of the critics and the teachers seem widely differ- 
ent. The first aim to purge the schools of the present type of teacher ; 
the second aim to displace the mechanical action of the school. Inves- 
tigation will show their ultimate aims to be identical. With truth, 
the schools are frequently pointed out as the greatest unifying agent 
extant in this land, whose people represent all European peoples, and 
yet who have a common faith in the integral principles of the constitu- 
tion of its national and state organizations. 

How varied are the races that have come from Europe ! Though 
of the Aryan stock, the branches have each their marked peculiarities. 
Not alone the differences in the Celtic, the Romanic, the Germanic, 
the Slavonic, and the Graeco-Italian blend, but the differences growing 

46 



FUNCTION OF A SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY 47 

out of the social customs of the many nations into which long ago the 
races had divided have been brought into the public school to be 
minimized, obliterated, harmonized in the process of unification. A 
survey of the past two hundred years shows the children of the poor 
and the rich, of the English-speaking and the non-English-speaking 
races, of the various religious faiths, all meeting on a common ground 
and with a common interest — the mastery of the printed page. As 
the young have striven side by side in the common school, they have 
learned, not from the printed page, but through experience, that the 
soul is not classified according to its worldly possessions, the particular 
language spoken in the home, or the faith in which it is reared. 
Differences in race customs might have been so intensified by the 
segregation of immigrants of different nationalities that open hostility 
would have been the prevailing attitude of different settlements toward 
each other. So potent has been the public school in creating a 
sentiment favorable to oneness, to Americanism, that sectional 
antagonism based on racial characteristics maintained in their original 
forms is unknown. In childhood, millions of America's citizens have 
learned something of the fundamentals in the unity of the human race. 
The comradeship in experience developed by the democratic spirit 
pervading the methods in instruction and discipline, is a more positive 
factor in the sympathetic appreciation existing between members of 
different religious and social organizations than the association in 
private or denominational schools can ever be. 

It is the free public school that has made the child of foreign 
parentage strive to take on the habits of dress, speech, and thought 
that would identify him with the people whose ancestors were merged 
into this social and political society at an earlier date than were his. 

Now, unification is concerned more with the spirit, the general aim, 
than it is with the reduction of the many elements to an unvarying 
form. The highest type of unification would be that which would send 
out into the world from the school boys and girls, young men and 
women, trained to clear thinking, active in their belief in a personal 
responsibility for the realization of the humanitarian idea underlying 
the form of government in which the American state is embodied. 

So rapid, however, has been the unexpected development of problem 
after problem that the school has begun to lose ground in this its greatest 



48 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

work. Unification was confounded with uniformity by the leaders, 
reformers, and organizers in their efforts to make that systematic which 
was to a considerable degree chaotic. The human mind, the most deli- 
cate, the most sensitive, the most complex of all organizations, loses 
power, is arrested in its development, if its efforts are directed toward 
establishing unvarying conditions in its own environment and in that of 
others also. Mind must continue to enlarge itsenvironment, and increase 
its ability to cope with the forces that would restrict, or repress, its native 
powers and modes of action. For teachers and pupils to become parts of 
an "incoherent homogeneity" is for them to lose in their school life 
that individuality which is the inherent right of every soul. An 
inspection of the courses of study, with their elaborate explanations of 
the method and scope in the presentation of the merely incidental, 
which followed the adoption of the plan of graded schools, would 
furnish abundant proof of the narrowing influence of the attempts to 
organize through the establishment of uniformity in the minutest 
details of method. That the American people, who are so deeply 
imbued with the possibility of political self-government for all peoples, 
could have become infatuated with this idea of inflexible methods in 
training their children can be explained only on the ground of seclusion, 
isolation, from the great movements in the world. The consecration 
of their life as a people to the idea of self-direction, self-control, made 
them magnify that which had been accomplished, as the permanent 
result of high thinking and acting which would be a standard for all 
time to come. 

In the reaction against the exactitude and exactions of the nar- 
row definiteness of uniformity, indefiniteness is the predominant char- 
acteristic. Within and without the school are opposing parties; one 
advocating a return to the old theory and practice which limited edu- 
cation by the state to acquaintance with reading and writing — the key 
to knowledge ; the other insisting that the theory upon which a 
democracy rests, places upon every man and woman rights and obliga- 
tions which cannot be intelligently comprehended by that part of the 
members having such slight preparation as the first party would give it. 
Whatever may be the attitude of the advocate of a narrow and super- 
ficial education, that openness and flexibility of mind which would 
prepare a people to cope with the changes that will come "through 



FUNCTION OF A SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY 49 

that irresistible force, the modern spirit," is the one which should char- 
acterize the mental attitude of all within the precincts of the school. 
Without this, the school will do little in adding to the grandeur of the 
future of America. A narrow provincialism will merely groove deeper 
the ideas which once sufficed for a state whose people were laying the 
foundations for material necessities. Already have those ideas proved 
themselves unequal to the demands upon them. It is this dominance 
of provincialism, with its limited ideas, not expanded to a compre- 
hension of what makes a state, which today makes much of the confu- 
sion regarding the relation of the state and the school. 

The inadequacy of a theory of public education which recognizes 
past conditions only, and ignores those formative influences that are 
shaping the future, is becoming manifest. It is difficult to base a theory 
of public education on a conception of the meaning of human society 
and its organization that will guarantee to each individual the full 
exercise of his powers in preparing to help solve the problem of gov- 
ernment by the people. The rapid development of natural science 
and its differentiation into many departments ; the opening out of the 
artistic world before an aesthetically starved people ; the recognition 
of the power, as well as the culture, that comes through linguistic and 
literary attainments ; all of these have been potent forces in awakening 
the American people to the many aspects of knowledge and training. 
With the enlargement of the national appreciation of the possibilities 
of culture and strength in the realms of science, art, and literature, 
there has been a tendency to attempt making all of these the posses- 
sion of the young. One good resulted from this overloading of the 
course of study : in the attempt to retain all subjects, attention was 
drawn to the isolation of each, and for a brief period the opposite of 
isolation, /. e., correlation, was the watchword of the day. There is as 
yet but slight change in the opinion of the two opposing parties on the 
subject of state education, yet each is influencing the other and bring- 
ing the subject of the course of study of the schools into the field of 
social inquiry. This opposition presents the extremes of educational 
theory and practice, which have ever been present in ancient and mod- 
ern life. On the one hand, the narrowness and forcefulness of the 
past are extolled, while the indefiniteness and superficiality of the 
present furnish ominous signs of decadence ; on the other hand, the 



50 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

wealth and variety of the present are regarded as indications of an 
enrichment of life, while the meagerness and formalism of the past are 
condemned. The settlement of these views by the state will materially 
influence its own character in the future. If the school must oscillate 
between extremes, much of its value as an institution of civil life must 
be lost, as in extremes there are evils that overwhelm much of the good 
in the theories which they represent. No fixed theory of education, as 
in China, is possible or desirable, but it should be possible to reduce 
the wide difference between the view of conservatives and liberals in 
education as in politics, so that sound attainments and the modern 
spirit may always characterize the ideal of the public school. 

Although the private schools and universities are not directly 
responsible to the state, yet there can be no evasion of their immediate 
relation to society and its welfare. The higher institutions are forging 
along, in the endeavor to command recognition as active factors in the 
forward movement of the nation. The lower private schools as a 
class are isolated, and yet they meet the approval of a portion of the 
many communities, because they are not bewildered by attempts to 
meet all the demands of modern utilitarian and culture theories. 
Nothing is more remarkable than the reversal of attitude by the public 
elementary and secondary schools, and the private school and academy, 
in connection with the number of subjects in which instruction is 
given. The former is endeavoring to function as an institution of the 
social world ; the latter is limiting itself to a definite task, that of 
meeting the requirements for admission to college. As a result, the 
one is attempting to leave no field of learning neglected, while the 
other is cultivating prescribed fields only. Several questions present 
themselves here. Are the public kindergarten, elementary, and second- 
ary schools organic parts of a unity, cooperating with each other, or 
are they practically isolated so that each in a measure duplicates the 
other ? Are they more nearly in touch with the spirit of American 
life than the private schools which are so closely connected with the 
colleges ? A careful comparison of the aims and method of public 
and private schools would be valuable. The broad experience and 
range of work in the one would be suggestive in the light of the more 
limited and yet more intensive activity of the other ; the stress on 
power, rather than facts, in the one, and in the other the emphasis on 



FUNCTION OF A SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY 5 1 

the mastery of the foundations, are two phases of the educational life 
that should be weighed carefully. 

Interest in the problems of society and of government is leading 
inquiring students of the philosophy of right to turn to the school 
and ask what it is doing toward training for citizenship. In return, 
the schools are experimenting with the forms by which the machinery 
of political parties is operated. There are different methods in the 
schools, though the general object is the same : to familiarize the future 
citizens with the theory and method of the state of which they are to 
be a part. This is not the place to discuss the advisability of begin- 
ning with the technique of civil organization, carrying on elections, 
running for ofifice, et cetera. Bishop Spalding's words, written without 
reference to this method, express one side of this question : " Do not 
our young men lack noble ambition ? Are they not satisfied with low 
aims ? To be a legislator ; to be a governor ; to be talked about ; to 
live in a marble house — seems to them to be a thing to be desired. 
Unhappy youths from whom the power and goodness of life are hidden, 
who, standing in the presence of the unseen, infinite world of truth 
and beauty, can only dream some aldermanic nightmare." Whether 
the emphasis on forms in our government will give a development 
other than on the mechanical side, whether it will illuminate the under- 
lying theory, whether it will help develop great personalities, are ques- 
tions of paramount interest. Every boy and girl before going out 
from the schools of America "should be educated into a self-con- 
sciousness of the essential equality and freedom of all men, so that he 
shall recognize and acknowledge himself in each and all ;" and though 
the transfer of monitorial powers and duties to the young may make 
the few appreciate the cares of the teachers in securing orderly con- 
duct, yet it cannot be effective in preparing a nation for self-govern- 
ment. 

Throughout the life of the public and private elementary schools 
the history of this country as described by its wars has been the sub- 
ject of many an hour's excited discussion by children ranging from 
twelve to fifteen years of age. With glowing hearts have they described 
the marches and the battles of the brave who have sunk to rest, blessed 
by their country. Eagerly have they searched for evidence of the 
courage and honor of their heroes. Today, as the people of the North 



52 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

and the South endeavor to knit closer the bonds that make them a 
single nation, the children in one section are reciting the triumphs of 
the blue over the gray, and in the other the triumphs of the gray over 
the blue. This continued development of the hostile spirit between 
the young of the two sections brings into the foreground the question 
of the function of the school. Should the history of the blot on our 
name be omitted ? Certainly not. But the story of a wrong wiped 
out, and the fanning of the flames of sectionalism, are very different 
things to a patriot. The boys and girls trained to view the people of 
another part of this country as enemies are isolated from the influ- 
ence of the great wave of brotherhood which is making the nation a 
unity. Has the concentration upon the objectionable conduct of our 
enemies tended to make the traveling host of Americans doubt the 
teaching of the schools, when the enemy has been met in foreign 
lands ? An excellent illustration of the effect of mistaken zeal in 
emphasizing the excellence of our own deeds, or those of our ancestors, 
was the appearance before a school superintendent, of a delegation of 
mothers, descendants of the slaves of the old slave-holding South, to 
protest against the continual reference in the class-study of our Civil 
War to "the slaves, the poor slaves whom we freed." That protest 
suggested the need of a study, not of the ethics of war, but of the 
ethics of peace resulting from a war. A little reflection will satisfy one 
that in the study of history the young are not trained to a high type 
of citizenship by aggrandizement through the spontaneous identifica- 
tion of self with a masterful past. A broad knowledge of history and a 
fair degree of familiarity with jurisprudence should be the least equip- 
ment of one who teaches the national history to boys and girls, if that 
study is to be effectual in advancing public morality- Political clubs 
that aim to develop public virtues by mere sensational orations before 
the history classes in the elementary schools, will find eventually that 
they have built on a quicksand. 

Unconsciously the American people have undertaken to solve the 
problem of laying in the home, the foundation for citizenship in a self- 
governing state. Necessarily their mistakes have been many, and a 
few serious defects bid fair to become permanent. With all the mis- 
takes, a careful observer must recognize the moral character of the 
advanced method that prevails in the intercourse between parents and 



FUNCTION OF A SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY 53 

children. While the parent retains the right of final decision, yet the 
children are not treated as being in a state of merely potential free- 
dom in all things. The exercise of the right of choice in regard to 
conduct pertaining to affairs comprehended within their circle of 
thought and action will train their judgment so that in the larger 
circles with the increased complexity of life, while the youth or adult 
will find more conditions to consider, there will not be new problems 
wholly foreign to past experience. It is generally conceded that the 
children whose conduct is directed and controlled so that they are 
isolated from active origination of the same are the least prepared for 
the struggle in the world when they pass from the state of tute- 
lage. 

In the recognition of the freedom of the human mind in its suc- 
cessive stages of development there are three ways in which teachers 
and parents may accord it : 

a) Children may be humored as if they were in a world of pre- 
tense, a world isolated from the real. Observation shows the results 
of this method to be the same that would be produced with human 
beings of any age. The results are pettishness toward the obstacles 
that confront them and suspicion of the intention underneath the 
declared attitude of those having power to determine the general 
course of the opposing conditions. Much of the irritability and 
capriciousness of American children is due to the tendency of parents 
to play with a freedom which is not potential, but is a right. 

b) Children may be given freedom in all matters as if they were in 
the adult stage, many of whose impulses and interests should be foreiarn 
to the young. They have a claim upon their parents for support and 
education, but during the continuance of the state in which that claim 
is in force there should be a distinction as to freedom in deciding 
upon matters connected with those conditions in which it is potential 
and those in which it is actual. 

c') Children may be justly treated by having them exercise freedom 
in origination and in realization of lines of conduct which are within 
the range of their reason and personality. Only upon reflection can 
parents arrive at a comprehension of the lines within that range. 
Upon the interpretation of "freedom is the soul's birthright" depends 
the moral training of the nation. 



54 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

Between the merits of the extreme which, on one hand, exacts obe- 
dience and subordination to the dictates of teachers and parents in all 
things, and that which, on the other hand, grants all rights to children, 
it is difficult to decide. In each extreme the children reach adult life, 
devoid of that command of self which can be realized in the highest 
degree possible for each individual, only as the power of initiative and 
execution is exerted in the sphere to which the individual belongs in 
the evolution of his nature or character. To repress this power in 
connection with those duties, in the performance of which the child is 
capable of exercising it, is to dwarf him ; to encourage the exercise 
of this power in connection with that which does not belong in the 
child's world of thought and action is to develop him prematurely. 

Never has the function of the school in a state been more plainly 
indicated than is that of the public school in this country in evolving 
a theory and practice of developing self-government for childhood and 
youth. The predominance given just now to the value of the school- 
training in fitting the coming men and women to carry forward the 
work of popular sovereignty — a work to which this nation has conse- 
crated itself — indicates the forcing of the old question, "What is the 
function of the school ? " into the consciousness of public thought, with 
the added idea that the school is a part of the state. All of this shows 
a broadening of the conception of a state. An interaction is being set 
up between the idea of a state and that of a school. The relation of 
the whole to its parts is undergoing investigation. Though the politi- 
cal horizon is darkened by the clouds that lower about it, yet the light 
must break through them ere long, for the isolation of the various 
instrumentalities of society is becoming a thing of the past. That lib- 
erty and equality which had disappeared in the national consciousness 
of political superiority are again open questions which must be inter- 
preted by the light of original investigation and application. 

The school cannot take up the question of the development of 
training for citizenship in a democracy while the teachers are still 
segregated in two classes, as are the citizens in an aristocracy. 

No more un-American or dangerous solution of the difficulties 
involved in maintaining a high degree of efficiency in the teaching 
corps of a large school system can be attempted than that which is 
effected by what is termed "close supervision." Frequent visitations 



FUNCTION OF A SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY 55 

to the schools in the district, or ward, bring the minutiae of each 
schoolroom into the foreground, and develop a feeling of responsi- 
bility for matters of petty detail which are of a purely personal nature ; 
and hence it follows that a ranking officer may be so near to the daily 
work as to have an exaggerated, or mistaken, conception of the obliga- 
tions of a superintendent in determining the method in regard to even 
the non-essentials in the conduct of the school. In a short time the 
teachers must cease to occupy the position of initiators in the indi- 
vidual work of instruction and discipline, and must fall into a class of 
assistants, whose duty consists in carrying out instructions of a higher 
class which originates method for all. The reaction from close super- 
vision with one set of dominant ideas to close supervision with another 
set has been the basis of procedure in every large system, with little 
recognition of the fundamental difficulty in the theory. In colleges 
and universities the benumbing theory of close supervision of the 
members of the faculties is unknown ; and yet it is generally held as 
an inspiring, natural one for elementary schools. There must come a 
recognition of the law of life in those schools. The rights and obliga- 
tions that inhere in members in different parts of the system must be 
subjected to careful analysis, and then the teaching corps must be 
unfettered in its activity in striving to realize those things which will 
evolve themselves in a free play of thought in the individual and the 
community. 

To secure this freedom of thought, there must be, within the various 
parts of the school, organizations for the consideration of questions of 
legislation. Such organizations have been effected in some universi- 
ties and in a few school systems, but in the latter they lack some essen- 
tial features for securing freedom of thought ; and yet they are deemed 
satisfactory ; so little does the teaching corps know about origination 
of thought on questions concerning education. Without doubt, coun- 
cils for discussion and recommendation may be organized, and seem to 
have an eminently successful life, and yet come far short of their 
potentialities. The voice of authority of position not only must not 
dominate, but must not be heard in, the councils. There should be 
organized, throughout every system, school councils whose membership 
in the aggregate should include every teacher and principal. The 
membership of each school council should be small enough to make 



56 ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL 

the discussions deliberative, not sensational ; and yet it should always 
include the teaching corps from at least two different schools, so that 
the official character which necessarily pervades the meetings of the 
principal and teachers of a school shall be eliminated. The necessity 
for such an organization of each first council that shall insure a free 
play of thought and its expression, rather than courage in opposing 
and declaiming, because restive under restraint, cannot be made 
too emphatic. There should be councils composed of delegates 
from the first councils ; and one central council composed of delegates 
from the second councils. The representation in the second and the 
central councils should not be determined by ranking positions in the 
schools. It is fair to assume that the delegates would be selected with 
care. After the recommendations have been made to the superin- 
tendent, and he with the assistant or district superintendents and the 
supervisors of special studies, has discussed them, if there are any points 
of difference in judgment, the district superintendents should meet 
the first councils and present the objections of the board of superin- 
tendents. The subject should pass in order through the councils 
again. The attendance of members of the supervising force upon 
the meetings for the reconsideration of questions would clarify 
the thought of all, provided there was no suspicion of an effort to 
have the objections sustained because of the official position of the 
objectors. 

If the result of the second discussion shows the original recom- 
mendation by the council again sustained, and the superintendent upon 
receipt of the report believes the majority of teachers and principals 
mistaken, there should be no further effort made to secure the adoption 
of his views by vote of the councils. He should act in accordance with 
his own judgment, and be held responsible for the outcotne. No one 
would receive the decision of the superintendent as something strange, 
unknown, to be incorporated in the work. The deliberations would have 
familiarized all with the essentials involved, and those sharp breaks in 
theory and practice which have been made in the past would no longer 
be possible. Education would be a continuous process, based on 
theory ; not mere experimentation, based on personal preferences. 

The most difficult line of action to pursue is that which respects 
the rights of other minds; not the rights of property, but of thought. 



FUNCTION OF A SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY 57 

The number that can yield these rights to their owners is limited. To 
break down the barriers of selfishness behind which, in our assumed 
strength, we intrench ourselves ; to participate in helpful communion 
with those who as yet have less experience than we, is to become an 
active member of a democratic solidarity. In such a solidarity will 
life in the school be noble. 

In monarchies and aristocracies it may be that the perpetuation of 
the particular form of government is dependent upon training the young 
for the station in life for which each is by the social organization destined. 
In this government the young cannot be trained for any particular sta- 
tion, for no one can foretell what that will be. Simply training free 
individualities will not suffice. Professor Mead makes plain the dif- 
ference between the ancient and the modern conception of free indi- 
viduality : "Greece furnishes a perfect illustration of the distinction 
between the freedom of the individual as an individual and the free- 
dom of the individual as a factor in an organization ; leeway was given 
to individual opinion or speculation, but recognition of the individual 
as an organic part of the community was unknown. In the mediaeval 
period the individual and his development came into the public con- 
sciousness." In America today more than leeway in individual opin- 
ion is needed ; more than the recognition of the individual and his 
development. From the entrance upon the first year in the kinder- 
garten till the close of the student life, if the school functions as 
an intrinsic part of this democracy, the child, the youth, and the 
teacher will each be an organic factor in an organization where rights 
and duties will be inseparable ; where the free movement of thought 
will develop great personalities. 



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